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How to Write the Overcoming Challenges Essay + Example

April 17, 2023

At some point, most college-bound students are tasked with writing an overcoming challenges essay. The prompt crops up in various forms, as a supplemental short essay about overcoming a challenge, and in as the main essay itself.

Some students may feel inclined to write about a dramatic experience (say, spotting a grizzly bear outside the kitchen window), mistaking the drama of the moment for a significant challenge. Others may get to work, only to realize they don’t have much to say about the time they got a C in P.E. (that dreaded frisbee unit). Students who’ve overcome unspeakable difficulties, like a death in the family, may find that reducing the tragedy to 650 words feels insufficient, or worse—as if they’re attempting to profit from suffering. One or two students may stare down the blank computer screen as their entire existence shrinks to the size of a 12-point font. Should they write about the challenge of writing about the challenge of writing an overcoming challenges essay??

Don’t worry. Focusing first on how to tackle the essay will help any student decide what they should write about. In fact, how the essay is written will also prove more influential than the challenge itself in determining the strength of the essay.

Decoding the Prompt

Let’s take a look at the overcoming challenges essay question included among the seven 2023-24 Common App Essay Prompts :

The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

Notice how the prompt places an immediate emphasis on the “lessons we take,” rather than on the obstacles themselves, or any potential success. This is because the challenge itself often says less about the student than the way the student chose to tackle it, or the way they now reflect on it. In other words, obstacles often come at us randomly; it’s our personal response to the circumstances which reveals something of who we are.

While studying a prompt for clues, it’s helpful to think from the perspective of the admissions officer (the essay reader). What can they glean from an overcoming challenges essay?  A lot, actually. A thoughtfully written essay may tell them about the student’s personality, as well as things like problem-solving techniques, rigor, persistence, creativity, and courage. These insights can work to prove to the admissions officers that the student has what it takes to overcome challenges in college, too. These future challenges may range from the inevitable academic obstacles that occur with heavy courseloads, to social and moral challenges that arise as college students form their adult identities.

Picking Your Topic: A Brainstorming Activity

With the question of identity in mind, let’s now approach the overcoming challenges essay backwards, by brainstorming the final message the student wants it to contain.

For this three-part exercise, the student will first set a five-minute timer. With the clock ticking, they’ll jot down character traits, values, and any descriptive words or terms that say something about who they are. If stumped, change perspective. The student may imagine what their best friends, parents, coaches and siblings would say. (For example, tenacious , logical , scientific , peacemaker .) Even mild criticism can be helpful, as long as it’s not cruel. While a student’s brother may call him a “perfectionist,” perhaps this word will trigger other relevant words, like persistent and detail-oriented.

Next, the student will set the timer for another five minutes, pull out a second sheet of paper, and jot down any challenges, obstacles, setbacks, failures, and achievements that come to mind. Don’t hold back here or overanalyze. (For example: underdog at state swim meet , getting lost on the family hike , petitioning for a school compost system …)

Lastly, the student will place the two pages side by side, and draw lines between the items on the list wherever connections occur. One student may draw lines between persistent , curious , gamer , passionate about electronics , and saved the day during the power outage. Another set of lines might connect caring, observant, creative thinker , and helped sister leave abusive cult . Whatever ideas are sparked here, the goal is to identify which challenges will demonstrate something essential about the student to an admissions officer.

Topics to Avoid

The internet is rife with advice on what not to write when writing an overcoming challenges essay. Yet this advice can be confusing, or downright hypocritical. For instance, some may advise against writing about death. Yet a student who lost their father at an early age may be capable of writing a poignant essay about their search for an alternative father figure, and how they found one in their soccer coach.

I suggest avoiding guides on what not to write until after the student has done a thorough round of brainstorming. Otherwise, they risk censoring themselves too early, and may reject a promising idea. Once they’ve narrowed down their list to three ideas or less, they may want to check our guide on College Application Essay Topics to Avoid .

The reason why certain types of overcoming challenges essays miss the mark is that they emphasize the wrong aspect of the experience, which turns the topic into a cliché. While it’s generally a good idea to avoid trivial topics (again, that C in P.E.), any topic has the potential to be compelling, if it’s animated through personal opinions, insight, and description. Details bring an experience to life. Structure and reflection make an essay convincing. In other words, how the story is told will determine whether or not the topic is worth writing about.

So, rather than avoid specific topics, consider avoiding these scenarios: if you can’t show the essay to your best friend or grandmother, it’s probably not ready to show a college admissions officer. If you must write a clichéd topic, don’t choose a typical structure.

Techniques to Hone

Techniques that animate an overcoming challenges essay are the same ones used in storytelling. Think setting, visuals, sounds, dialogue, physical sensations, and feelings. “Showing” instead of “telling.” Crafting the essay with these inner and external details will bring the challenge to life, and catch the reader’s attention.

Another technique which works well when trying to avoid the trappings of cliché involve subverting the reader’s expectations. In storytelling terms, this is a plot twist. The student who got a C in P.E. may actually have a stellar essay on their hands, if they can break away from the “bad grade” trope (working harder to improve their grade). Perhaps this student’s story is actually about how, while sitting on the bleachers and not participating in the game, they found themselves watching the frisbee spin through the air, and realized they had a deep interest in the movement of astronomical bodies.

Some of the strongest overcoming challenges essays demonstrate what students have learned about themselves, rather than what they’ve learned about the obstacle they confronted. These essays may show how the student has come to see themselves differently, or how they’ve decided to change, thanks to the challenge they faced. These essays work because the reflection is natural and even profound, based on the student’s self-awareness.

Writing the Overcoming Challenges Essay, or Drafts, Drafts, Drafts

Everyone writes differently, some by outlining (never a bad idea), some by free-styling (good for capturing sensations and memories), some by lighting a candle—but don’t procrastinate too much. The only “must” is to revise. After a first draft, the student should begin to look for several things:

1) Clarity and Detail. Is the challenge recounted with precision? Is it personal?

2) Structure. Consider mapping the structure, to visualize it better. Does the structure suit the story? Can it be changed for clarity, or to keep the reader more engaged?

3) Cliché. Identify words, sentences, and ideas that are dull or repetitive. Mark them up, and in the next draft, find ways to rewrite, subvert, condense, and delete.

4) Lesson Learned. Has the student reflected adequately on the lesson they learned from overcoming a challenge? To add more reflection, students might ask themselves what they have felt and thought about the experience since. Would they do something differently, if faced with the same challenge? Has their understanding of the experience evolved over time?

By the final draft, the experience and the reflection should feel equally weighted. To get there, it may take five or six drafts.

Overcoming Challenges Essay Sample

The Happiness Hotline

First there were reports. Then we were told to stop socializing, go inside, wait. Covid struck. Everyone knows what ensued. It probably looked different from where we were all (separately) standing, even though we faced the same thing. Those first weeks, I stood at my bedroom window. It was dark by early evening in Oregon. The weirdest part—after the fact that we were collectively sharing the loneliest experience of our lives—was the silence.

… it was really quiet.

So quiet, I could hear my mom sigh downstairs. (So quiet, I couldn’t remember if I’d hummed aloud, or if I’d just heard myself in my head.) When I looked out the window, I could hear the stoplight at the end of our street. Green to yellow. Click.

Before going on, you should know three things. First, this is not a Covid essay. This is about melancholy, and the “sadness that has taken on lightness,” to quote Italo Calvino. Second, from my bedroom window, I can see down a row of oak trees, past the hospital, to my friend Carlo’s house. Third, Carlo is a jazz singer. Maybe that sounds pretentious, a freshman kid being a jazz singer, but that’s Carlo, and I wouldn’t be me without Carlo being Carlo. He’s someone who appreciates the unhinged rhythm of a Charlie Parker tune. He’s an extrovert who can bring introverts like me out of my shell. He convinced me to learn trombone, and together we riff in the after-school jazz club.

In the first month of the pandemic, we called each other nightly to talk rap albums, school stuff. At Carlo’s house, he could hear a white-crowned sparrow. He could also hear his parents talking numbers behind the bathroom door. The death toll was mounting. The cost of living was going up too. As the month wore on, I began to hear something else in our calls, in the way Carlo paused, or forgot what he was saying. Carlo was scared. He felt sad, isolated, and without his bright energy, I too, felt utterly alone.

Overcoming Challenges Essay Sample (Continued)

After some dark days, I realized that to help ourselves we needed to help others. It was pretty obvious the more I thought about it. People are social creatures, supposedly, even introverts. Maybe our neighbors needed to remember the noisiness of life.

We built a happiness hotline. That sounds fancy, though essentially, we provided three-way calls on my parents’ landline. The harder part involved making flyers and putting them up around town, in places people were still going. Grocery stores, the post office. We made a TikTok account, and then—the phone rang. Our first caller.

For months, if you called in, you could talk to us about your days in lockdown. People went really deep about the meaning of life, and we had to learn on the spot how to respond. I’d become a journalist and a therapist before becoming a sophomore. After chatting, the caller would request a song, and if we knew how to play it, we would. If not, we improvised.

Now we’re seniors in high school. Carlo visits the hospital with band members. As for myself, I’ve been working on a community music book, compiling our callers’ favorite tunes. I don’t want to forget how important it felt to make these connections. Our callers taught me that loneliness is a bit like a virus, a bit like a song. Even when it stops it can come back to haunt you, as a new variant or an old refrain. Still, sadness can take on lightness when voices call through the dark: sparrows, friends, strangers. I learned I’m good at listening into the silence. Listening isn’t only a passive stance, but an open line of receiving.

Analysis of the Overcoming Challenges Essay Sample

This student uses their musical passion to infuse the essay with vivid detail. There’s a focus on sound throughout, from the bird to the stoplight. Then there are the callers, and the clever way the student conceived of breaking through the silence. The narrator’s voice sharpens the piece further, elevating a clichéd Covid essay to a personal story of self-discovery.

In fact, the essay briefly breaks with structure to tell the reader that this is not a Covid essay. Although techniques like this should be used sparingly, it works here by grabbing the reader’s attention. It also allows the student to organize their thoughts on the page, before moving the plot along.

Outwardly, the student is overcoming the challenge of loneliness in a time of quarantine. Yet there seems to be an inner, unspoken challenge as well, that of coming to terms with the student’s introverted personality. The essay’s reflection occurs in the final paragraph, making the essay experience-heavy. However, clues woven throughout point to the reflection that will come. Details like the Italo Calvino quote hint at the later understanding of how to alleviate loneliness. While some readers might prefer more development, the various themes are threaded throughout, which makes for a satisfying ending.

A Last Word on the Short Essay About Overcoming Challenges

The short essay about overcoming a challenge requires the same steps as a longer one. To write it, follow the same brainstorming activity, then focus more on condensing and summarizing the experience. Students who’ve already written a longer overcoming challenges essay can approach the short essay about overcoming a challenge by streamlining. Instead of deleting all the extra bits, keep two interesting details that will flavor the essay with something memorable and unique.

• College Essay

Kaylen Baker

With a BA in Literary Studies from Middlebury College, an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University, and a Master’s in Translation from Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis, Kaylen has been working with students on their writing for over five years. Previously, Kaylen taught a fiction course for high school students as part of Columbia Artists/Teachers, and served as an English Language Assistant for the French National Department of Education. Kaylen is an experienced writer/translator whose work has been featured in Los Angeles Review, Hybrid, San Francisco Bay Guardian, France Today, and Honolulu Weekly, among others.

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How to Nail Your Overcoming a Challenge Essay

By Eric Eng

How to Nail Your Overcoming a Challenge Essay: 5 Key Tips

College essays are one of the most important yet underutilized portions of college applications. By the time students reach this part of the admissions process, they’re just ready to get everything completed and submitted so they can finally relax. However, college essays play a major role in determining whether or not your application receives a second look or gets tossed to the side.

Although all colleges have different essays, there are many themes that span across all schools. One of the most common and challenging of these prompts is the “overcoming a challenge” essay. Many students get stumped on this seemingly easy and straightforward prompt for a variety of reasons.

Here, we’ll take a deep dive into this essay topic, explore what college admissions officers are looking for, and offer some tips for writing an essay about overcoming challenges.

What’s the “overcoming a challenge” essay prompt?

As the name suggests, the “overcoming a challenge” prompt is any college essay question asking applicants to discuss a difficult obstacle or challenge they had to overcome. There are different variations of the question, but the fundamental subject matter is the same.

College admissions officers want to know how you handle adversity and how challenges you’ve faced have shaped who you are today. Like many college essay prompts, this topic is asking you to get a bit personal and open up.

It’s a crucial opportunity for applicants to reveal more about themselves to admissions officers to further prove they deserve an acceptance letter. While you might be tempted to recount one of the most traumatic events you’ve experienced in your life, it’s important to keep in mind that these essays aren’t judged based on the severity of the event encountered. In fact, the challenge can be something relatively mundane and common.

Admissions officers are going to evaluate your response based on how you responded to the challenge, overcame it, and learned from it. The whole point is to show colleges that you can handle setbacks and obstacles in your life and that you have the fortitude, resourcefulness, and perseverance to push through.

No matter where you attend, there’s a good chance you’ll experience some hurdles on your way to graduation. Colleges need to know their students can handle some of these challenges gracefully. The “overcoming a challenge” essay prompt helps colleges gauge this ability.

Examples of “overcoming a challenge” essays

In order to give you a better idea of what these essays look like, let’s review some actual “overcoming a challenge” college prompts. The first example is from the Common Application and requires students to respond to the following question with a 650-word limit.

“The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?”

Notice how the question isn’t just regarding a setback or challenge you suffered in the past. The prompt is also asking you to expound on how this experience impacted you and how it changed you to this day. This is a great example of how the emphasis of this prompt is on how it affected the applicant instead of the severity of the challenge itself.

Our second example of an “overcoming a challenge” prompt comes from MIT . For the 2018-2020 school year, applicants were asked to respond to the following question in 200 to 250 words.

“Tell us about the most significant challenge you’ve faced or something important that didn’t go according to plan. How did you manage the situation?”

In this prompt, you can see that the focus is on how you “managed the situation” not what you learned or how you’ve been changed as a result.

It’s imperative to pay attention to the specifics of the question as “overcoming a challenge” prompts tend to vary in how they’re asked and what exactly they’re looking for despite the overall subject being the same. Paying attention to these details can ensure you’re giving admissions officers exactly what they’re looking for when reading your application.

tips for writing an essay about overcoming challenges

1. stay away from common topics..

One of the biggest pitfalls students experience when answering the “overcoming a challenge” essay is choosing a common topic. Considering that admissions officers have to read through hundreds if not thousands of essay responses to the same question, writing on a common topic can come across as banal and unoriginal.

Even if your essay is pristine, the topic still runs the risk of bringing down your overall response. Instead, it’s advisable to try and identify a challenge or obstacle you’ve faced in your life that is unique or, at the very least, not so common. Some common “overcoming a challenge” essay topics to avoid include winning a difficult sports game or passing a course in which you were struggling.

Think back in your life to events that made an impact on how you think and act. Are any of these experiences challenges that you overcame and changed for the better? Don’t be afraid to get personal. The more unique and original you can make the topic, the better chance you have of standing out from the crowd.

2. Identify an obstacle that highlights qualities you want to emphasize.

Colleges employ “overcoming a challenge” prompts to learn more about applicants than other parts of the application would reveal. Most notably, these essays are intended to highlight some characteristics that a student might possess which would prove valuable for their time in college.

For example, a story about handling a challenging event in your life could demonstrate mental fortitude, social tact, perseverance, long-term thinking, follow-through, and other positive characteristics. A great way to strengthen your response and improve your application overall is to choose a topic that will highlight certain qualities you want to demonstrate to admissions officers. For example, overcoming a disagreement with a friend might stand out to you like a meaningful challenge.

However, the characteristics it might illustrate including forgiveness, understanding, and empathy might not be the traits you want to convey to admissions officers. It’s advisable for students to think ahead about the qualities they’d like to come across in their response and choose a challenge based on that criteria.

Again, the whole point of this essay prompt is to illustrate some positives about you and your personality. Thinking ahead about how your essay topic will come across to admissions officers can make your overall piece more impactful and calculated.

3. Steer clear of common paragraph structures.

Are you ready for a pro tip that most applicants won’t ever consider? In order to make your “overcoming a challenge” essay stick out from other responses, you should pay attention to the essay structure. Yes, you heard that right!

The way you organize your prompt response can play a massive role in how the essay comes across. Even if your topic is unique, admissions officers will still notice regurgitated paragraph patterns. To ensure your “overcoming a challenge” essay attracts the attention of colleges, you’ll need to pay attention to how it’s written. The vast majority of students stick to the following structure:

Describe a challenging event or experience –> Explain how you overcame the challenge

It’s not that this format will hurt your essay. Rather, the point is that coming up with something more unique and unexpected can help your essay stand out. Need some ideas to get your creativity flowing? No problem! Instead of focusing on a singular event or occasion, you could write about a challenge you overcame over a prolonged period of time and the various events that helped you push forward.

If you really want to get innovative, you could focus on a challenge that you’re still in the process of overcoming. You could bring it into the present day and talk about what you plan to do in the future. These variations aren’t essential but are a great way to catch the attention of admissions officers.

4. Focus on internal aspects

When asked to describe an event or obstacle, like the “overcoming a challenge” prompt requests, many students focus on detailing people, places, circumstances, and other physical or tangible elements. While this is a great writing technique in general, you’re not writing for a Pulitzer Prize when answering college essays.

It’s all about giving admissions officers exactly what they want, ensuring your responses stand out, and demonstrating your strengths in the process. As a result, it’s advisable to focus more on the internal components of your topic rather than the circumstances surrounding it. For example, instead of going into detail about what happened during the challenging event, you should write about how you reacted, how you felt, what you thought, and how you overcame it mentally.

Were you anxious, worried, nervous, scared, confused? Did the event surprise you or frustrate you? These are all questions you should be thinking about when writing your “overcoming a challenge” essay. Your psychological experience and development throughout the triumph of this obstacle is the real story. It’s more captivating and more revealing about who you are and who you became in the process. This narrative will make admissions officers feel like they know you more personally which can work wonders for making your essay stand out.

5. Emphasize the impact, not the event.

As mentioned before, the whole point of an “overcoming a challenge” prompt is to give admissions officers a better idea of who you are and how you deal with challenges. The question involves a difficult or challenging situation in your life but the emphasis is on how you reacted to the situation, rose to the occasion, and became better as a result. Some students feel the need to focus on the challenge itself rather than what was learned in the process.

Spending too much time on the event instead of how it impacted you can end up hurting the quality of your answer. Don’t forget that you’re dealing with a strict word limit. Although it varies between each school, some universities only give applicants a few hundred words to respond. The biggest chunk of your response should focus on the impact the event had on your life rather than how difficult it was or the specifics surrounding the challenge.

Now, this doesn’t mean you have to explicitly write that “from this event, I learned…” You certainly can make it that evident, but it’s more effective to show your reader rather than telling them by providing examples of how you’re better for having gone through the challenge. For example, let’s say you had a debilitating fear of public speaking.

To overcome the challenge you joined a debate club and worked through the discomfort to become a stronger speaker overall. Instead of saying “I became more confident in front of crowds” you could illustrate that transformation by saying “Now, I can even deliver extemporaneous speeches with ease.” This describes the qualities you’ve developed instead of saying them outright. It’s a small detail that can make a big difference for the admissions officers reading your essays.

Take your college application to the next level

You can think of your college application as your college resume. It’s a summary of your previous performance and experience as well as a reflection of your current knowledge and capabilities. The overall quality of your application will determine which college you get accepted into.

No matter what colleges you have on your list of potential schools, it’s imperative to ensure your college application is optimized. But, with so many different parts of the college admissions process, that’s much easier said than done. That’s where Admission Sight can help!

For the past 10 years, we’ve been helping students just like you perfect their applications to drastically increase their chances of getting into their dream universities. And you know what? The results have been fantastic.

Roughly 75% of the students we’ve helped have gone on to receive acceptance from Ivy League or Top 10 Universities. Yes, our services are really that effective! But how does it work? Well, it’s quite simple actually.

We offer a wide variety of services specifically designed to help students improve their college applications and prepare for the college admissions process overall. If you’re ready to get started on mastering your college application, feel free to reach out to us. We’ll set up a free consultation to discuss our services in greater detail.

Want to assess your chances of admission? Take our FREE chances calculator today!

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One Expert's Advice to Help You Write a Strong Overcoming Adversity Essay

Leslie Tucker PhD, Jun 07, 2021

Learn how to pick the right adversity story and write an impressive overcoming adversity essay

Whether you’re working on college or scholarship applications, you’re bound to come across the overcoming adversity essay sooner or later. While every type of college application essay is unique, the overcoming adversity essay presents particular challenges for students.

What’s the best way to talk about the adversity in your life? What if you come off as too whiny? What if you don’t have any significant obstacles to write about? Will you be at a disadvantage?

Every year, my students ask me how to tackle this tricky part of their college applications. Luckily for you, I’ve developed a fool-proof approach for writing the overcoming adversity essay , and I’m eager to share it.

Keep reading to learn why the adversity essay is important, how to choose the best topic, and how to write an impactful overcoming adversity essay.

Why the overcoming adversity essay is important

When colleges ask you to write a personal hardship essay, what are they trying to learn? Many students think they’re trying to find and admit the applicants who have faced the most adversity. Not true! Trust me, the adversity essay is NOT a competition to see who has it worse.

The purpose of the overcoming adversity essay is to reveal how you respond to difficult situations. Think about it. College is hard—not everyone has what it takes to succeed. Colleges want to accept students who have the skills and resilience to persevere through the adversity they’re bound to face.

So when an admissions officer reads your adversity essay, they’re trying to answer these questions:

●      How do you manage stress?

●      How do you attempt to resolve adversity?

●      How do you reflect on the challenges you face?

●      How do you apply lessons to your life?

If you can successfully answer these questions, you’ll write a stand-out overcoming adversity essay.

Not sure how to recognize an overcoming adversity essay prompt? Here are a few examples.

The Common App

The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

The University of Miami

Considering your ability to control your own motivation and behavior, how have past experiences helped build your courage and resilience to persist in the face of academic and life challenges so that, once these storms pass, you can emerge in continued pursuit of your goals?

The University of California

Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement?

How to select the best story for your overcoming adversity essay

Choosing what to write your overcoming adversity essay about can be a challenge. The hardest things you’ve faced in life might not actually be the best topics. So I always encourage students to brainstorm lots of ideas before committing to one.

Here’s what I suggest. Sit down with a family member or close friend. Write a list of all the adversity you’ve faced—big and small. From challenging school projects to your parents divorce to the death of a family member, add everything you can think of to your list.

Next, you’ll want to remember and record how you reacted to each of the obstacles on your list. What were you thinking? What actions did you take?

To choose your adversity essay story, you’ll actually focus on your reactions list. Search for the instances when you showed impressive grit, strength, resilience, and problem-solving skills. These are the best stories to use for your overcoming adversity essay.

Weak topics for your adversity essay

As you’re selecting which topic to write about, beware of choosing a story that falls into one of these categories.

●      Adversity you faced due to COVID or virtual learning—everyone dealt with these circumstances, so it’s not a unique topic and won’t help you stand out.

●      Obstacles you dealt with in elementary or middle school—it’s a bit too outdated. Find a more recent instance of your grit and resilience.

●      Interpersonal struggles you had with a teacher or coach—these essays can come off like you don’t get along well with adults, which isn’t the impression you want to give.

Strong topics for your adversity essay

Any story that shows your maturity and problem-solving skills is a good choice for your overcoming adversity essay. Even so, there are few topics that might be better options for you than others, depending on your circumstances.

●      Ongoing obstacles you’re still facing but you’re handling well—important if this obstacle will carry on into college.

●      Adversity that interfered with your academic achievement—important if you had a GPA dip you’d like to explain.

●      Something that will resonate with the school you’re applying to or the career you’re pursuing—important if adversity drove you to choose a specific type of school or major.

How to write an impressive overcoming adversity essay

Now we’ve arrived at my fool-proof overcoming adversity essay formula. Once you’ve chosen the right story that demonstrates your resilience, just apply this formula to create a memorable adversity essay.

This formula is simple. It’s all about crafting a narrative. Remember, you’re telling the story of when you faced an obstacle. So you want it to sound like a real story, not a school report.

Here is the five-step formula to writing the perfect overcoming adversity essay.

• Introduce the obstacle or adversity
• Describe your emotional response
• Discuss the actions you took to face the problem
• Share the outcome of the situation
• Reveal what you learned from the experience

See? It’s a piece of cake. Now let’s see how it looks applied to an adversity story.

• The adversity: My family moved across the country between my sophomore and junior year.
• Emotional response: I was devastated to lose my friends and scared to start over in a new place.
• Actions taken: I scheduled regular talks and virtual hang outs with my old friends to ensure we’d stay in touch. Then I pushed myself to join two clubs at the beginning of the school year.
• Outcome: I stayed connected with friends from home. And even though it was intimidating to make new friends, putting myself out there helped me quickly meet people who shared my interests. I felt less alone and adjusted to my new environment sooner than I expected.
• Lessons learned: I am stronger and more adaptable than I thought I was. I am capable of thriving in new places and creating a new community for myself wherever I go.

With extremely little effort, I made a strong outline for an adversity essay using this formula. You can do the same!

Dos and don’ts for your overcoming adversity essay

The formula will take you a long way in structuring your adversity essay, but here are a few additional tips and tricks to make sure your writing is outstanding.

●       Don’t try to garner sympathy or pity —be honest about what happened, but remember your purpose isn’t to make the reader feel bad for you.

●       Do maintain a positive and upbeat tone throughout your adversity essay.

●       Don’t spend too much time describing the problem —keep it brief and to the point.

●       Do focus the majority of the essay on how you responded to and resolved the obstacle.

●       Don’t forget to include the outcome and the lessons you learned —self reflection is impressive to application readers.

●       Do connect what you learned with your future in college or in your chosen career.

Remember, one of the great things about the overcoming adversity essay is that you’re telling a story. You’re not making an argument or delivering an informational report. Once you have your story and the structure in place, have fun with the rest!

Final thoughts about the overcoming adversity essay

I’ll never say writing a college application essay is easy. But hopefully I’ve convinced you that the overcoming adversity essay isn’t as intimidating as it seems. In fact, I hope you have an enjoyable time writing your adversity essay and celebrating your resilience. Be proud of yourself. You are amazing!

I want to hear from you! What are your thoughts and concerns about the overcoming adversity essay? Drop a comment below, and I’ll be happy to address them.

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College Essays

Most colleges and universities in the United States require applicants to submit at least one essay as part of their application. But trying to figure out what college essay topics you should choose is a tricky process. There are so many potential things you could write about!

In this guide, we go over the essential qualities that make for a great college essay topic and give you 50+ college essay topics you can use for your own statement . In addition, we provide you with helpful tips for turning your college essay topic into a stellar college essay.

What Qualities Make for a Good College Essay Topic?

Regardless of what you write about in your personal statement for college , there are key features that will always make for a stand-out college essay topic.

#1: It’s Specific

First off, good college essay topics are extremely specific : you should know all the pertinent facts that have to do with the topic and be able to see how the entire essay comes together.

Specificity is essential because it’ll not only make your essay stand out from other statements, but it'll also recreate the experience for admissions officers through its realism, detail, and raw power. You want to tell a story after all, and specificity is the way to do so. Nobody wants to read a vague, bland, or boring story — not even admissions officers!

For example, an OK topic would be your experience volunteering at a cat shelter over the summer. But a better, more specific college essay topic would be how you deeply connected with an elderly cat there named Marty, and how your bond with him made you realize that you want to work with animals in the future.

Remember that specificity in your topic is what will make your essay unique and memorable . It truly is the key to making a strong statement (pun intended)!

#2: It Shows Who You Are

In addition to being specific, good college essay topics reveal to admissions officers who you are: your passions and interests, what is important to you, your best (or possibly even worst) qualities, what drives you, and so on.

The personal statement is critical because it gives schools more insight into who you are as a person and not just who you are as a student in terms of grades and classes.

By coming up with a real, honest topic, you’ll leave an unforgettable mark on admissions officers.

#3: It’s Meaningful to You

The very best college essay topics are those that hold deep meaning to their writers and have truly influenced them in some significant way.

For instance, maybe you plan to write about the first time you played Skyrim to explain how this video game revealed to you the potentially limitless worlds you could create, thereby furthering your interest in game design.

Even if the topic seems trivial, it’s OK to use it — just as long as you can effectively go into detail about why this experience or idea had such an impact on you .

Don’t give in to the temptation to choose a topic that sounds impressive but doesn’t actually hold any deep meaning for you. Admissions officers will see right through this!

Similarly, don’t try to exaggerate some event or experience from your life if it’s not all that important to you or didn’t have a substantial influence on your sense of self.

#4: It’s Unique

College essay topics that are unique are also typically the most memorable, and if there’s anything you want to be during the college application process, it’s that! Admissions officers have to sift through thousands of applications, and the essay is one of the only parts that allows them to really get a sense of who you are and what you value in life.

If your essay is trite or boring, it won’t leave much of an impression , and your application will likely get immediately tossed to the side with little chance of seeing admission.

But if your essay topic is very original and different, you’re more likely to earn that coveted second glance at your application.

What does being unique mean exactly, though? Many students assume that they must choose an extremely rare or crazy experience to talk about in their essays —but that's not necessarily what I mean by "unique." Good college essay topics can be unusual and different, yes, but they can also be unique takes on more mundane or common activities and experiences .

For instance, say you want to write an essay about the first time you went snowboarding. Instead of just describing the details of the experience and how you felt during it, you could juxtapose your emotions with a creative and humorous perspective from the snowboard itself. Or you could compare your first attempt at snowboarding with your most recent experience in a snowboarding competition. The possibilities are endless!

#5: It Clearly Answers the Question

Finally, good college essay topics will clearly and fully answer the question(s) in the prompt.

You might fail to directly answer a prompt by misinterpreting what it’s asking you to do, or by answering only part of it (e.g., answering just one out of three questions).

Therefore, make sure you take the time to come up with an essay topic that is in direct response to every question in the prompt .

Take this Coalition Application prompt as an example:

What is the hardest part of being a teenager now? What's the best part? What advice would you give a younger sibling or friend (assuming they would listen to you)?

For this prompt, you’d need to answer all three questions (though it’s totally fine to focus more on one or two of them) to write a compelling and appropriate essay.

This is why we recommend reading and rereading the essay prompt ; you should know exactly what it’s asking you to do, well before you start brainstorming possible college application essay topics.

53 College Essay Topics to Get Your Brain Moving

In this section, we give you a list of 53 examples of college essay topics. Use these as jumping-off points to help you get started on your college essay and to ensure that you’re on track to coming up with a relevant and effective topic.

All college application essay topics below are categorized by essay prompt type. We’ve identified six general types of college essay prompts:

Why This College?

Change and personal growth, passions, interests, and goals, overcoming a challenge, diversity and community, solving a problem.

Note that these prompt types could overlap with one another, so you’re not necessarily limited to just one college essay topic in a single personal statement.

• How a particular major or program will help you achieve your academic or professional goals
• A memorable and positive interaction you had with a professor or student at the school
• Something good that happened to you while visiting the campus or while on a campus tour
• A certain class you want to take or a certain professor you’re excited to work with
• Some piece of on-campus equipment or facility that you’re looking forward to using
• Your plans to start a club at the school, possibly to raise awareness of a major issue
• A study abroad or other unique program that you can’t wait to participate in
• How and where you plan to volunteer in the community around the school
• An incredible teacher you studied under and the positive impact they had on you
• How you went from really liking something, such as a particular movie star or TV show, to not liking it at all (or vice versa)
• How yours or someone else’s (change in) socioeconomic status made you more aware of poverty
• A time someone said something to you that made you realize you were wrong
• How your opinion on a controversial topic, such as gay marriage or DACA, has shifted over time
• A documentary that made you aware of a particular social, economic, or political issue going on in the country or world
• Advice you would give to your younger self about friendship, motivation, school, etc.
• The steps you took in order to kick a bad or self-sabotaging habit
• A juxtaposition of the first and most recent time you did something, such as dance onstage
• A book you read that you credit with sparking your love of literature and/or writing
• A school assignment or project that introduced you to your chosen major
• A glimpse of your everyday routine and how your biggest hobby or interest fits into it
• The career and (positive) impact you envision yourself having as a college graduate
• A teacher or mentor who encouraged you to pursue a specific interest you had
• How moving around a lot helped you develop a love of international exchange or learning languages
• A special skill or talent you’ve had since you were young and that relates to your chosen major in some way, such as designing buildings with LEGO bricks
• Where you see yourself in 10 or 20 years
• Your biggest accomplishment so far relating to your passion (e.g., winning a gold medal for your invention at a national science competition)
• A time you lost a game or competition that was really important to you
• How you dealt with the loss or death of someone close to you
• A time you did poorly in a class that you expected to do well in
• How moving to a new school impacted your self-esteem and social life
• A chronic illness you battled or are still battling
• Your healing process after having your heart broken for the first time
• A time you caved under peer pressure and the steps you took so that it won't happen again
• How you almost gave up on learning a foreign language but stuck with it
• Why you decided to become a vegetarian or vegan, and how you navigate living with a meat-eating family
• What you did to overcome a particular anxiety or phobia you had (e.g., stage fright)
• A history of a failed experiment you did over and over, and how you finally found a way to make it work successfully
• Someone within your community whom you aspire to emulate
• A family tradition you used to be embarrassed about but are now proud of
• Your experience with learning English upon moving to the United States
• A close friend in the LGBTQ+ community who supported you when you came out
• A time you were discriminated against, how you reacted, and what you would do differently if faced with the same situation again
• How you navigate your identity as a multiracial, multiethnic, and/or multilingual person
• A project or volunteer effort you led to help or improve your community
• A particular celebrity or role model who inspired you to come out as LGBTQ+
• Your biggest challenge (and how you plan to tackle it) as a female in a male-dominated field
• How you used to discriminate against your own community, and what made you change your mind and eventually take pride in who you are and/or where you come from
• A program you implemented at your school in response to a known problem, such as a lack of recycling cans in the cafeteria
• A time you stepped in to mediate an argument or fight between two people
• An app or other tool you developed to make people’s lives easier in some way
• A time you proposed a solution that worked to an ongoing problem at school, an internship, or a part-time job
• The steps you took to identify and fix an error in coding for a website or program
• An important social or political issue that you would fix if you had the means

How to Build a College Essay in 6 Easy Steps

Once you’ve decided on a college essay topic you want to use, it’s time to buckle down and start fleshing out your essay. These six steps will help you transform a simple college essay topic into a full-fledged personal statement.

Step 1: Write Down All the Details

Once you’ve chosen a general topic to write about, get out a piece of paper and get to work on creating a list of all the key details you could include in your essay . These could be things such as the following:

• Emotions you felt at the time
• Names, places, and/or numbers
• Dialogue, or what you or someone else said
• A specific anecdote, example, or experience
• Descriptions of how things looked, felt, or seemed

If you can only come up with a few details, then it’s probably best to revisit the list of college essay topics above and choose a different one that you can write more extensively on.

Good college essay topics are typically those that:

• You remember well (so nothing that happened when you were really young)
• You're excited to write about
• You're not embarrassed or uncomfortable to share with others
• You believe will make you positively stand out from other applicants

Step 2: Figure Out Your Focus and Approach

Once you have all your major details laid out, start to figure out how you could arrange them in a way that makes sense and will be most effective.

It’s important here to really narrow your focus: you don’t need to (and shouldn’t!) discuss every single aspect of your trip to visit family in Indonesia when you were 16. Rather, zero in on a particular anecdote or experience and explain why and how it impacted you.

Alternatively, you could write about multiple experiences while weaving them together with a clear, meaningful theme or concept , such as how your math teacher helped you overcome your struggle with geometry over the course of an entire school year. In this case, you could mention a few specific times she tutored you and most strongly supported you in your studies.

There’s no one right way to approach your college essay, so play around to see what approaches might work well for the topic you’ve chosen.

If you’re really unsure about how to approach your essay, think about what part of your topic was or is most meaningful and memorable to you, and go from there.

Step 3: Structure Your Narrative

• Beginning: Don’t just spout off a ton of background information here—you want to hook your reader, so try to start in the middle of the action , such as with a meaningful conversation you had or a strong emotion you felt. It could also be a single anecdote if you plan to center your essay around a specific theme or idea.
• Middle: Here’s where you start to flesh out what you’ve established in the opening. Provide more details about the experience (if a single anecdote) or delve into the various times your theme or idea became most important to you. Use imagery and sensory details to put the reader in your shoes.
• End: It’s time to bring it all together. Finish describing the anecdote or theme your essay centers around and explain how it relates to you now , what you’ve learned or gained from it, and how it has influenced your goals.

Step 4: Write a Rough Draft

By now you should have all your major details and an outline for your essay written down; these two things will make it easy for you to convert your notes into a rough draft.

At this stage of the writing process, don’t worry too much about vocabulary or grammar and just focus on getting out all your ideas so that they form the general shape of an essay . It’s OK if you’re a little over the essay's word limit — as you edit, you’ll most likely make some cuts to irrelevant and ineffective parts anyway.

If at any point you get stuck and have no idea what to write, revisit steps 1-3 to see whether there are any important details or ideas you might be omitting or not elaborating on enough to get your overall point across to admissions officers.

Step 5: Edit, Revise, and Proofread

• Sections that are too wordy and don’t say anything important
• Irrelevant details that don’t enhance your essay or the point you're trying to make
• Parts that seem to drag or that feel incredibly boring or redundant
• Areas that are vague and unclear and would benefit from more detail
• Phrases or sections that are awkwardly placed and should be moved around
• Areas that feel unconvincing, inauthentic, or exaggerated

Start paying closer attention to your word choice/vocabulary and grammar at this time, too. It’s perfectly normal to edit and revise your college essay several times before asking for feedback, so keep working with it until you feel it’s pretty close to its final iteration.

This step will likely take the longest amount of time — at least several weeks, if not months — so really put effort into fixing up your essay. Once you’re satisfied, do a final proofread to ensure that it’s technically correct.

Step 6: Get Feedback and Tweak as Needed

After you’ve overhauled your rough draft and made it into a near-final draft, give your essay to somebody you trust , such as a teacher or parent, and have them look it over for technical errors and offer you feedback on its content and overall structure.

Use this feedback to make any last-minute changes or edits. If necessary, repeat steps 5 and 6. You want to be extra sure that your essay is perfect before you submit it to colleges!

Recap: From College Essay Topics to Great College Essays

Many different kinds of college application essay topics can get you into a great college. But this doesn’t make it any easier to choose the best topic for you .

In general, the best college essay topics have the following qualities :

• They’re specific
• They show who you are
• They’re meaningful to you
• They’re unique
• They clearly answer the question

If you ever need help coming up with an idea of what to write for your essay, just refer to the list of 53 examples of college essay topics above to get your brain juices flowing.

Once you’ve got an essay topic picked out, follow these six steps for turning your topic into an unforgettable personal statement :

• Write down all the details
• Figure out your focus and approach
• Structure your narrative
• Write a rough draft
• Edit, revise, and proofread
• Get feedback and tweak as needed

And with that, I wish you the best of luck on your college essays!

What’s Next?

Writing a college essay is no simple task. Get expert college essay tips with our guides on how to come up with great college essay ideas and how to write a college essay, step by step .

You can also check out this huge list of college essay prompts  to get a feel for what types of questions you'll be expected to answer on your applications.

Want to see examples of college essays that absolutely rocked? You're in luck because we've got a collection of 100+ real college essay examples right here on our blog!

Hannah received her MA in Japanese Studies from the University of Michigan and holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Southern California. From 2013 to 2015, she taught English in Japan via the JET Program. She is passionate about education, writing, and travel.

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, discussing overcoming challenges in essays.

I've faced some challenges in my life and I'm considering writing about them in my college essays. Does anyone have any advice on how to approach this topic and what aspects I should focus on? Thanks a bunch!

When discussing overcoming challenges in your college essays, it's important to strike a balance between showcasing your resilience and highlighting personal growth. Here are some tips to help you approach this topic effectively:

1. Be authentic - Choose a challenge that is significant to you and has shaped your personal development. This will make your essay more relatable and genuine. Avoid exaggerating or fabricating experiences just for the sake of making your essay sound more impressive.

2. Focus on the learning experience - Emphasize the lessons learned from overcoming the challenge, and demonstrate how you applied these insights in other areas of your life. This will show that the experience was transformative and has contributed to your growth as a person.

3. Stay positive - Maintain a positive tone throughout your essay, even when discussing the difficulties you faced. By highlighting your resilience and ability to cope with adversity, you show the admissions officers that you have the capacity to thrive in challenging situations.

4. Structure your essay effectively - Start with a brief description of the challenge and its impact on your life. Then, discuss the steps you took to overcome the challenge, and how the experience has shaped your perspective. Wrap up the essay by tying everything together and showing how the experience will help you succeed in college and beyond.

5. Show, don't tell - Instead of simply stating that the challenge made you stronger, provide specific examples of how it has influenced your life. This will make your essay more engaging and help the reader understand the depth of your personal journey.

6. Keep it concise - Your essay should be focused and clear. Make sure to keep the word count within the college's guidelines, and avoid going off on tangents that detract from the main topic.

For example, if you've faced a health issue that led to missing a significant amount of school, you could focus on the steps you took to catch up and stay on track academically, how you leaned on the support of others, and how this experience has made you more empathetic towards others facing similar challenges.

To learn more about this essay type, read here: https://blog.collegevine.com/overcoming-challenges-essay/

Remember that your essay is an opportunity to let the admissions officers get to know you beyond your grades and test scores. By effectively discussing how you've overcome challenges in your life, you can demonstrate your resilience, growth, and potential for success in college.

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CollegeVine’s Q&A seeks to offer informed perspectives on commonly asked admissions questions. Every answer is refined and validated by our team of admissions experts to ensure it resonates with trusted knowledge in the field.

Essays About Challenges: Top 11 Examples and Prompts

We come across many challenges we must endure throughout life. If you want to write essays about challenges , start by reading some of our top essay examples.

Everyone has had to deal with obstacles or challenges at some point. Some people can overcome hurdles with confidence and bravery, while many others have difficulty trying to face them. However, the challenges we have faced are, without a doubt, a central part of who we are today. Overcoming challenges can make you a better person. The lessons you learn from them are essential for future success , and as with all other experiences, these challenges help form you into the person you are today. They can also be exciting to some, as they test your skills and capabilities. 

If you are writing essays about challenges , look at our featured essay examples below. 

1. Personal Challenges by Delores Goodwin

2. life’s struggles make us stronger – and happier – if we let them by helen g. rousseau, 3. how to overcome your challenges with openness and courage by tony fahkry.

• 4.  ​​Life: full of challenges by Vaibhav Jain

5. Challenges Facing Public Schools by Lewis Rios

1. challenges i have faced, 2. lessons learned from challenges, 3. how to change your attitude towards challenge, 4. helping others overcome challenges and adversity, 5. challenges faced in your home country, 6. challenges the world currently faces.

“A challenge will tell an individual more about themselves than anything else in life. Am I a quitter? How much adversity can I take? How badly do I want this? What is my breaking point? Where does my loyalty end? Challenge can ask us hundreds of questions and forces us to answer honestly. Challenges end the talk and make one walk the walk. Create challenges for yourself, it will cause you to see who you really are.”

Challenges are a necessity of life despite the hardship and stress they come with, and Goodwin discusses this in her essay. A great accomplishment cannot be made without a challenge. Without challenges , one becomes complacent, so we must keep facing challenges to keep us mentally and physically strong. Goodwin encourages readers to challenge themselves more to help them delve deeper into who they are. For more, check out these essays about life challenges .

“Every human being has been in this place at one time or another. Sometimes depression can make it more difficult to get away from the edge but any spark of light or encouragement should be used to seek help physically, emotionally or spiritually. When we face a crisis, it effects the all of who we are and thus must be met with our total beings.”

Rousseau reflects on overcoming adversity, recalling when she met with two former coworkers. They talked about their lives, families, and struggles during lunch. They could bond over their shared positive, confident mindset, allowing them to overcome challenges . Rousseau clarifies that if you put your mind to it, you can overcome anything and closes her essay with two of her poems about resilience. 

“Instead of running away from your emotions, lean into them and experience them fully. This transforms your fears and anxiety into empowering emotions. Let go of what you believe life owes you. It owes you nothing since you are the expression of life. Rise to your challenges armed with courage and an open mind. Remain confident that your experiences are serving your personal growth.”

Fahkry explains how to face challenges without stress and suffering. He reminds us that, first of all, we have free will, so we do not have to feel the way we do if we put our minds to it. We cannot change our reality once it is already there, so feeling sad or angry for prolonged periods is useless. If we change our mindsets for the better, we can overcome all adversity. Our fear and anxiety can be turned into confidence , empowerment, and courage. Check out these essays about competition .

4.  ​​ Life: full of challenges by Vaibhav Jain

“A person who has not encountered difficulties in life can never achieve success . Difficulties test the courage, patience, perseverance, and true character of a human being. Adversity and hardships make a person strong and ready to face the challenges of life with equanimity. There is no doubt that there can be no gain without pain. It is only when one toils and sweats it out that success is nourished and sustained.”

In his short essay, Jain writes about the wonders of life as well as its challenges . He likens life to a bed of roses, complete with painful thorns. In general, life is good, but adversity and challenges are prevalent. These two concepts seem different, but one cannot exist without the other. As with the previous essays, Jain explains that challenges make us stronger and help us feel successful and relieved: “there can be no gain without pain.” Without challenges , we take the better parts of life for granted; if we accept and overcome our struggles, we can live life to the fullest.

“In conclusion, public educational institutions experience many challenges ranging from budgetary constraints, student violence and low parental involvement. Much research needs to be done to establish why these problems exist in the first place and lasting solutions for these institutions.”

Rios’ essay explores challenges in an education system; he proposes research on the constraints of the U.S. public school system. Public schools face several economic and social challenges , such as insufficient funding and lack of parental involvement due to many students’ working-class backgrounds. Rios wishes for more research on these problems and possible solutions. 

Writing Prompts On Essays about Challenges

In this essay, write about a challenge you previously encountered and how you dealt with it. Provide context by describing the events leading up to it, how it happened, and, most importantly, how you overcame it. Then, describe how you felt after- were you relieved, stressed, or tired? You can also discuss how this experience has affected you today. 

Challenges can teach us a lot about life and the world. Reflect on a challenge you faced previously and what you learned from it, whether positive or negative. As with the previous prompt, feel free to include ways in which the lesson you learned affects you today. 

How can you best handle the challenges you may face? Describe the ideal attitude one would need to overcome complex challenges . For example, what qualities would you need to have- courage, prudence, or sensibility? Regardless of what type of attitude you choose to write about, your essay will be substantive if you can adequately support your argument. 

In your essay, you can write about a time you were able to help someone facing a challenge. Who did you help- a friend, family member, or someone else? Then, write about how you helped them, how it made you feel, and how it has impacted your life. 

Research one particular challenge your country is facing today, whether that be an economic, social, or political issue. Discuss how this challenge occurred and what began the difficulties. If applicable, include multiple viewpoints on the issue and include information from credible sources. You can also propose possible solutions to this issue. 

Humanity faces challenges on a massive scale, from a climate change crisis to possible third world war to a global pandemic. Choose one challenge the world faces today and write your essay about it. As with the previous prompt, write about the causes and responses to this challenge, and feel free to propose a solution. 

Check out our guide packed full of transition words for essays .

ProWritingAid is one of our top grammar checkers. Find out why in this ProWritingAid review .

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Blog: How to Write an Overcoming Challenges College Essay

Updated: Dec 29, 2022

As deadlines and deadlines creep up on us this year, you might be thinking to yourself: my biggest challenge is college application season. And you’re not wrong nor alone in that feeling; applying to universities is indeed a massive undertaking. When you’re confronted by a question like, “What is the biggest challenge that you’ve overcome?” it’s easy to start spiraling out—what if my biggest challenge isn’t significant enough? What if I haven’t overcome any challenges?

No fear, Cassandra’s here with 4 tips on how to write this challenging essay.

1. Don’t Look for “Big,” Look for Authentic

Some of the best “challenge” essays I’ve read are about the smaller moments in life, like not landing a dream role in a school musical or conquering stage fright. Your topic doesn’t have to be grandiose or somber or life-altering in order for this to be a good essay. In fact, if you try to force your essay into something that it’s not, your admissions officer will be able to see through that quickly; inauthenticity is the last thing you want in your essays.

Your officers know that everyone’s lives are different; what might be a huge challenge for one person might not be challenging for another, and that’s okay. What’s important here is that you choose a topic or story that you genuinely felt like was challenging to you. Forget about the scope—let’s just make it authentic to you and your voice.

Specificity is key. Even if you’re choosing a “cliche” topic, for example, challenges in the sports world, you can still make this essay sing by putting in details only you could’ve written. Everybody’s point of view is unique. Describe your situation/world in a way that has your fingerprints and lens on it.

2. Show the Struggle AND the Victory

Remember that you are telling a story with a beginning, middle and end. I like to think of it as a classic plot structure for a movie or a book. Take a look at this chart above

. See how much of the struggle or the rising action takes up? Ideally, your essay should aim for 70% struggle, 10% turning point, and 20% celebration/lessons learned. Paint us a picture of the blood, sweat and tears you went through. Let us feel the difficulty of this challenge. You might think that these details are too insignificant but if you spend time showing and not telling us the story, we’re right there in the trenches with you. We’ll empathize with you every step of the way.

A turning point in the essay is important. Often, I find that it might be an epiphany, a realization that something’s not quite working in your initial approach to overcoming a challenge. Once you write that in, this will logically and naturally propel us to the last 20%, which is showcasing the New You: what do you look like after overcoming this challenge? Have you emerged from this difficulty stronger? Braver? More equipped? Don’t tell us that, SHOW us. If you had shaky hands at the beginning before taking your first hang gliding lesson, end on an image of steady hands guiding the glider through the skies. And don’t forget to give us a taste of that sweet victory celebration too. In the same way we feel your struggle, we also want to feel your euphoria and glee at overcoming the struggle.

3. Avoid Summary

The biggest mistake I see students make is including a conclusion paragraph that neatly summarizes all the lessons learned from overcoming this challenge. Why is that a mistake? It’s a waste of real estate. If you did your job correctly, that is, SHOW and not TELL us a story of your struggle, we should implicitly understand the lessons that you’ve absorbed and how you’re a better, different person now.

It’s good that you wrote the summary/conclusion paragraph—now copy and paste it into a new document as a lamppost for your next draft. Make sure your essay reflects it; if you’re struggling to meet a word count, hold up every sentence to this lamppost and ask yourself, “does this help achieve what I want my readers to implicitly take away?”

4. Don’t Forget to Answer The Question

Some essay questions ask for more than just telling us a time where you overcame a challenge. It might ask you to make a connection to your academics and what you hope to study in the future; it might ask you to draw a line between what you overcame and how you plan to contribute to student life on their campus. Whatever it may be, make sure you answer ALL parts of the question!

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• College Essay Examples | What Works and What Doesn’t

College Essay Examples | What Works and What Doesn't

Published on November 8, 2021 by Kirsten Courault . Revised on August 14, 2023.

One effective method for improving your college essay is to read example essays . Here are three sample essays, each with a bad and good version to help you improve your own essay.

Table of contents

Essay 1: sharing an identity or background through a montage, essay 2: overcoming a challenge, a sports injury narrative, essay 3: showing the influence of an important person or thing, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about college application essays.

This essay uses a montage structure to show snapshots of a student’s identity and background. The writer builds her essay around the theme of the five senses, sharing memories she associates with sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste.

In the weak rough draft, there is little connection between the individual anecdotes, and they do not robustly demonstrate the student’s qualities.

In the final version, the student uses an extended metaphor of a museum to create a strong connection among her stories, each showcasing a different part of her identity. She draws a specific personal insight from each memory and uses the stories to demonstrate her qualities and values.

How My Five Senses Record My Life

Throughout my life, I have kept a record of my life’s journey with my five senses. This collection of memories matters a great deal because I experience life every day through the lens of my identity.

“Chinese! Japanese!”

My classmate pulls one eye up and the other down.

“Look what my parents did to me!”

No matter how many times he repeats it, the other kids keep laughing. I focus my almond-shaped eyes on the ground, careful not to attract attention to my discomfort, anger, and shame. How could he say such a mean thing about me? What did I do to him? Joseph’s words would engrave themselves into my memory, making me question my appearance every time I saw my eyes in the mirror.

Soaking in overflowing bubble baths with Andrew Lloyd Webber belting from the boombox.

Listening to “Cell Block Tango” with my grandparents while eating filet mignon at a dine-in show in Ashland.

Singing “The Worst Pies in London” at a Korean karaoke club while laughing hysterically with my brother, who can do an eerily spot-on rendition of Sweeney Todd.

Taking car rides with Mom in the Toyota Sequoia as we compete to hit the high note in “Think of Me” from The Phantom of the Opera . Neither of us stands a chance!

The sweet scent of vegetables, Chinese noodles, and sushi wafts through the room as we sit around the table. My grandma presents a good-smelling mixture of international cuisine for our Thanksgiving feast. My favorite is the Chinese food that she cooks. Only the family prayer stands between me and the chance to indulge in these delicious morsels, comforting me with their familiar savory scents.

I rinse a faded plastic plate decorated by my younger sister at the Waterworks Art Center. I wear yellow rubber gloves to protect my hands at Mom’s insistence, but I can still feel the warm water that offers a bit of comfort as I finish the task at hand. The crusted casserole dish with stubborn remnants from my dad’s five-layer lasagna requires extra effort, so I fill it with Dawn and scalding water, setting it aside to soak. I actually don’t mind this daily chore.

I taste sweat on my upper lip as I fight to continue pedaling on a stationary bike. Ava’s next to me and tells me to go up a level. We’re biking buddies, dieting buddies, and Saturday morning carbo-load buddies. After the bike display hits 30 minutes, we do a five-minute cool down, drink Gatorade, and put our legs up to rest.

My five senses are always gathering new memories of my identity. I’m excited to expand my collection.

Word count: 455

College essay checklist

Topic and structure

• I’ve selected a topic that’s meaningful to me.
• My essay reveals something different from the rest of my application.
• I have a clear and well-structured narrative.
• I’ve concluded with an insight or a creative ending.

Writing style and tone

• I’ve crafted an introduction containing vivid imagery or an intriguing hook that grabs the reader’s attention.
• I’ve written my essay in a way that shows instead of tells.
• I’ve used appropriate style and tone for a college essay.
• I’ve used specific, vivid personal stories that would be hard to replicate.
• I’ve demonstrated my positive traits and values in my essay.
• My essay is focused on me, not another person or thing.
• I’ve included self-reflection and insight in my essay.
• I’ve respected the word count , remaining within 10% of the upper word limit.

Making Sense of My Identity

Welcome to The Rose Arimoto Museum. You are about to enter the “Making Sense of My Identity” collection. Allow me to guide you through select exhibits, carefully curated memories from Rose’s sensory experiences.

First, the Sight Exhibit.

“Chinese! Japanese!”

“Look what my parents did to me!”

No matter how many times he repeats it, the other kids keep laughing. I focus my almond-shaped eyes on the ground, careful not to attract attention as my lip trembles and palms sweat. Joseph couldn’t have known how his words would engrave themselves into my memory, making me question my appearance every time I saw my eyes in the mirror.

Ten years later, these same eyes now fixate on an InDesign layout sheet, searching for grammar errors while my friend Selena proofreads our feature piece on racial discrimination in our hometown. As we’re the school newspaper editors, our journalism teacher Ms. Riley allows us to stay until midnight to meet tomorrow’s deadline. She commends our work ethic, which for me is fueled by writing一my new weapon of choice.

Next, you’ll encounter the Sound Exhibit.

Still, the world is my Broadway as I find my voice on stage.

Just below, enter the Smell Exhibit.

While I help my Pau Pau prepare dinner, she divulges her recipe for cha siu bau, with its soft, pillowy white exterior hiding the fragrant filling of braised barbecue pork inside. The sweet scent of candied yams, fun see , and Spam musubi wafts through the room as we gather around our Thankgsiving feast. After our family prayer, we indulge in these delicious morsels until our bellies say stop. These savory scents of my family’s cultural heritage linger long after I’ve finished the last bite.

Next up, the Touch Exhibit.

I rinse a handmade mug that I had painstakingly molded and painted in ceramics class. I wear yellow rubber gloves to protect my hands at Mom’s insistence, but I can still feel the warm water that offers a bit of comfort as I finish the task at hand. The crusted casserole dish with stubborn remnants from my dad’s five-layer lasagna requires extra effort, so I fill it with Dawn and scalding water, setting it aside to soak. For a few fleeting moments, as I continue my nightly chore, the pressure of my weekend job, tomorrow’s calculus exam, and next week’s track meet are washed away.

Finally, we end with the Taste Exhibit.

My legs fight to keep pace with the stationary bike as the salty taste of sweat seeps into corners of my mouth. Ava challenges me to take it up a level. We always train together一even keeping each other accountable on our strict protein diet of chicken breasts, broccoli, and Muscle Milk. We occasionally splurge on Saturday mornings after interval training, relishing the decadence of everything bagels smeared with raspberry walnut cream cheese. But this is Wednesday, so I push myself. I know that once the digital display hits 30:00, we’ll allow our legs to relax into a five-minute cool down, followed by the fiery tang of Fruit Punch Gatorade to rehydrate.

Thank you for your attention. This completes our tour. I invite you to rejoin us for next fall’s College Experience collection, which will exhibit Rose’s continual search for identity and learning.

Word count: 649

• I’ve crafted an essay introduction containing vivid imagery or an intriguing hook that grabs the reader’s attention.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

This essay uses a narrative structure to recount how a student overcame a challenge, specifically a sports injury. Since this topic is often overused, the essay requires vivid description, a memorable introduction and conclusion , and interesting insight.

The weak rough draft contains an interesting narrative, insight, and vivid imagery, but it has an overly formal tone that distracts the reader from the story. The student’s use of elaborate vocabulary in every sentence makes the essay sound inauthentic and stilted.

The final essay uses a more natural, conversational tone and chooses words that are vivid and specific without being pretentious. This allows the reader to focus on the narrative and appreciate the student’s unique insight.

One fateful evening some months ago, a defensive linebacker mauled me, his 212 pounds indisputably alighting upon my ankle. Ergo, an abhorrent cracking of calcified tissue. At first light the next day, I awoke cognizant of a new paradigm—one sans football—promulgated by a stabbing sensation that would continue to haunt me every morning of this semester.

It’s been an exceedingly taxing semester not being able to engage in football, but I am nonetheless excelling in school. That twist of fate never would have come to pass if I hadn’t broken my ankle. I still limp down the halls at school, but I’m feeling less maudlin these days. My friends don’t steer clear anymore, and I have a lot more of them. My teachers, emboldened by my newfound interest in learning, continually invite me to learn more and do my best. Football is still on hold, but I feel like I’m finally playing a game that matters.

Five months ago, right after my ill-fated injury, my friends’ demeanor became icy and remote, although I couldn’t fathom why. My teachers, in contrast, beckoned me close and invited me on a new learning journey. But despite their indubitably kind advances, even they recoiled when I drew near.

A few weeks later, I started to change my attitude vis-à-vis my newfound situation and determined to put my energy toward productive ends (i.e., homework). I wasn’t enamored with school. I never had been. Nevertheless, I didn’t abhor it either. I just preferred football.

My true turn of fate came when I started studying more and participating in class. I started to enjoy history class, and I grew interested in reading more. I discovered a volume of poems written by a fellow adventurer on the road of life, and I loved it. I ravenously devoured everything in the writer’s oeuvre .

As the weeks flitted past, I found myself spending my time with a group of people who were quite different from me. They participated in theater and played instruments in marching band. They raised their hands in class when the teacher posed a question. Because of their auspicious influence, I started raising my hand too. I am no longer vapid, and I now have something to say.

I am certain that your school would benefit from my miraculous academic transformation, and I entreat you to consider my application to your fine institution. Accepting me to your university would be an unequivocally righteous decision.

Word count: 408

• I’ve chosen a college essay topic that’s meaningful to me.
• I’ve respected the essay word count , remaining within 10% of the upper word limit.

As I step out of bed, the pain shoots through my foot and up my leg like it has every morning since “the game.” That night, a defensive linebacker tackled me, his 212 pounds landing decidedly on my ankle. I heard the sound before I felt it. The next morning, I awoke to a new reality—one without football—announced by a stabbing sensation that would continue to haunt me every morning of this semester.

My broken ankle broke my spirit.

My friends steered clear of me as I hobbled down the halls at school. My teachers tried to find the delicate balance between giving me space and offering me help. I was as unsure how to deal with myself as they were.

In time, I figured out how to redirect some of my frustration, anger, and pent-up energy toward my studies. I had never not liked school, but I had never really liked it either. In my mind, football practice was my real-life classroom, where I could learn all I ever needed to know.

Then there was that day in Mrs. Brady’s history class. We sang a ridiculous-sounding mnemonic song to memorize all the Chinese dynasties from Shang to Qing. I mumbled the words at first, but I got caught up in the middle of the laughter and began singing along. Starting that day, I began browsing YouTube videos about history, curious to learn more. I had started learning something new, and, to my surprise, I liked it.

With my afternoons free from burpees and scrimmages, I dared to crack open a few more of my books to see what was in them. That’s when my English poetry book, Paint Me Like I Am , caught my attention. It was full of poems written by students my age from WritersCorps. I couldn’t get enough.

I wasn’t the only one who was taken with the poems. Previously, I’d only been vaguely aware of Christina as one of the weird kids I avoided. Crammed in the margins of her high-top Chuck Taylors were scribbled lines of her own poetry and infinite doodles. Beyond her punk rock persona was a sensitive artist, puppy-lover, and environmental activist that a wide receiver like me would have never noticed before.

With Christina, I started making friends with people who once would have been invisible to me: drama geeks, teachers’ pets, band nerds. Most were college bound but not to play a sport. They were smart and talented, and they cared about people and politics and all sorts of issues that I hadn’t considered before. Strangely, they also seemed to care about me.

I still limp down the halls at school, but I don’t seem to mind as much these days. My friends don’t steer clear anymore, and I have a lot more of them. My teachers, excited by my newfound interest in learning, continually invite me to learn more and do my best. Football is still on hold, but I feel like I’m finally playing a game that matters.

My broken ankle broke my spirit. Then, it broke my ignorance.

Word count: 512

This essay uses a narrative structure to show how a pet positively influenced the student’s values and character.

In the weak draft, the student doesn’t focus on himself, instead delving into too much detail about his dog’s positive traits and his grandma’s illness. The essay’s structure is meandering, with tangents and details that don’t communicate any specific insight.

In the improved version, the student keeps the focus on himself, not his pet. He chooses the most relevant stories to demonstrate specific qualities, and the structure more clearly builds up to an insightful conclusion.

Man’s Best Friend

I desperately wanted a cat. I begged my parents for one, but once again, my sisters overruled me, so we drove up the Thompson Valley Canyon from Loveland to Estes Park to meet our newest family member. My sisters had already hatched their master plan, complete with a Finding Nemo blanket to entice the pups. The blanket was a hit with all of them, except for one—the one who walked over and sat in my lap. That was the day that Francisco became a Villanova.

Maybe I should say he was mine because I got stuck with all the chores. As expected, my dog-loving sisters were nowhere to be found! My mom was “extra” with all the doggy gear. Cisco even had to wear these silly little puppy shoes outside so that when he came back in, he wouldn’t get the carpets dirty. If it was raining, my mother insisted I dress Cisco in a ridiculous yellow raincoat, but, in my opinion, it was an unnecessary source of humiliation for poor Cisco. It didn’t take long for Cisco to decide that his outerwear could be used as toys in a game of Keep Away. As soon as I took off one of his shoes, he would run away with it, hiding under the bed where I couldn’t reach him. But, he seemed to appreciate his ensemble more when we had to walk through snowdrifts to get his job done.

When my abuela was dying from cancer, we went in the middle of the night to see her before she passed. I was sad and scared. But, my dad let me take Cisco in the car, so Cisco cuddled with me and made me feel much better. It’s like he could read my mind. Once we arrived at the hospital, the fluorescent lighting made the entire scene seem unreal, as if I was watching the scene unfold through someone else’s eyes. My grandma lay calmly on her bed, smiling at us even through her last moments of pain. I disliked seeing the tubes and machines hooked up to her. It was unnatural to see her like this一it was so unlike the way I usually saw her beautiful in her flowery dress, whistling a Billie Holiday tune and baking snickerdoodle cookies in the kitchen. The hospital didn’t usually allow dogs, but they made a special exception to respect my grandma’s last wishes that the whole family be together. Cisco remained at the foot of the bed, intently watching abuela with a silence that seemed more effective at communicating comfort and compassion than the rest of us who attempted to offer up words of comfort that just seemed hollow and insincere. It was then that I truly appreciated Cisco’s empathy for others.

As I accompanied my dad to pick up our dry cleaner’s from Ms. Chapman, a family friend asked, “How’s Cisco?” before even asking about my sisters or me. Cisco is the Villanova family mascot, a Goldendoodle better recognized by strangers throughout Loveland than the individual members of my family.

On our summer trip to Boyd Lake State Park, we stayed at the Cottonwood campground for a breathtaking view of the lake. Cisco was allowed to come, but we had to keep him on a leash at all times. After a satisfying meal of fish, our entire family walked along the beach. Cisco and I led the way while my mom and sisters shuffled behind. Cisco always stopped and refused to move, looking back to make sure the others were still following. Once satisfied that everyone was together, he would turn back around and continue prancing with his golden boy curly locks waving in the chilly wind.

On the beach, Cisco “accidentally” got let off his leash and went running maniacally around the sand, unfettered and free. His pure joy as he raced through the sand made me forget about my AP Chem exam or my student council responsibilities. He brings a smile not only to my family members but everyone around him.

Cisco won’t live forever, but without words, he has impressed upon me life lessons of responsibility, compassion, loyalty, and joy. I can’t imagine life without him.

Word count: 701

I quickly figured out that as “the chosen one,” I had been enlisted by Cisco to oversee all aspects of his “business.” I learned to put on Cisco’s doggie shoes to keep the carpet clean before taking him out一no matter the weather. Soon after, Cisco decided that his shoes could be used as toys in a game of Keep Away. As soon as I removed one of his shoes, he would run away with it, hiding under the bed where I couldn’t reach him. But, he seemed to appreciate his footwear more after I’d gear him up and we’d tread through the snow for his daily walks.

One morning, it was 7:15 a.m., and Alejandro was late again to pick me up. “Cisco, you don’t think he overslept again, do you?” Cisco barked, as if saying, “Of course he did!” A text message would never do, so I called his dad, even if it was going to get him in trouble. There was no use in both of us getting another tardy during our first-period class, especially since I was ready on time after taking Cisco for his morning outing. Alejandro was mad at me but not too much. He knew I had helped him out, even if he had to endure his dad’s lecture on punctuality.

Another early morning, I heard my sister yell, “Mom! Where are my good ballet flats? I can’t find them anywhere!” I hesitated and then confessed, “I moved them.” She shrieked at me in disbelief, but I continued, “I put them in your closet, so Cisco wouldn’t chew them up.” More disbelief. However, this time, there was silence instead of shrieking.

Last spring, Cisco and I were fast asleep when the phone rang at midnight. Abuela would not make it through the night after a long year of chemo, but she was in Pueblo, almost three hours away. Sitting next to me for that long car ride on I-25 in pitch-black darkness, Cisco knew exactly what I needed and snuggled right next to me as I petted his coat in a rhythm while tears streamed down my face. The hospital didn’t usually allow dogs, but they made a special exception to respect my grandma’s last wishes that the whole family be together. Cisco remained sitting at the foot of the hospital bed, intently watching abuela with a silence that communicated more comfort than our hollow words. Since then, whenever I sense someone is upset, I sit in silence with them or listen to their words, just like Cisco did.

The other day, one of my friends told me, “You’re a strange one, Josue. You’re not like everybody else but in a good way.” I didn’t know what he meant at first. “You know, you’re super responsible and grown-up. You look out for us instead of yourself. Nobody else does that.” I was a bit surprised because I wasn’t trying to do anything different. I was just being me. But then I realized who had taught me: a fluffy little puppy who I had wished was a cat! I didn’t choose Cisco, but he certainly chose me and, unexpectedly, became my teacher, mentor, and friend.

Word count: 617

If you want to know more about academic writing , effective communication , or parts of speech , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Academic writing

• Writing process
• Transition words
• Passive voice
• Paraphrasing

 Communication

• How to end an email
• Ms, mrs, miss
• How to start an email
• I hope this email finds you well
• Hope you are doing well

 Parts of speech

• Personal pronouns
• Conjunctions

A standout college essay has several key ingredients:

• A unique, personally meaningful topic
• A memorable introduction with vivid imagery or an intriguing hook
• Specific stories and language that show instead of telling
• Vulnerability that’s authentic but not aimed at soliciting sympathy
• Clear writing in an appropriate style and tone
• A conclusion that offers deep insight or a creative ending

There are no set rules for how to structure a college application essay , but these are two common structures that work:

• A montage structure, a series of vignettes with a common theme.
• A narrative structure, a single story that shows your personal growth or how you overcame a challenge.

Avoid the five-paragraph essay structure that you learned in high school.

Though admissions officers are interested in hearing your story, they’re also interested in how you tell it. An exceptionally written essay will differentiate you from other applicants, meaning that admissions officers will spend more time reading it.

You can use literary devices to catch your reader’s attention and enrich your storytelling; however, focus on using just a few devices well, rather than trying to use as many as possible.

Most importantly, your essay should be about you , not another person or thing. An insightful college admissions essay requires deep self-reflection, authenticity, and a balance between confidence and vulnerability.

Your essay shouldn’t be a résumé of your experiences but instead should tell a story that demonstrates your most important values and qualities.

When revising your college essay , first check for big-picture issues regarding message, flow, tone, style , and clarity. Then, focus on eliminating grammar and punctuation errors.

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How to Answer the Essay Prompt "Describe a Challenge You Overcame"

Late fall is officially college admissions season! Some students have already sent in their early decision applications and are working hard on those regular decision deadlines, which means it may be time to work on your essays.

These essays from the Common App , Coalition App , or your prospective school’s specific format can vary in topic, and you may get to choose what you write about. But no matter the school or set of schools to which you’re applying, you will likely come across a version of the “Describe a Challenge You Overcame” or “Overcoming a Challenge” essay prompt.

For some people, the answer to this could be evident. But if you have no idea what to write about, the first rule is:

Don’t panic

So many students are plagued with questions like: What if I’ve never overcome an obstacle? Is my life boring? What if I have nothing to write about, and the admissions officers hate me? What if they judge me for what I've been through?

Deep breath.

All of these fears are normal, but everyone has overcome some sort of challenge or obstacle, whether small or completely overwhelming. By being authentic to yourself, yours will be compelling to readers and help them get to know the kind of student you are now and will be at their college or university.

You will need more than panicking to help you write an essay. Remember that everyone has something valuable to say, and the obstacle you choose will matter less than your ability to write about it and highlight your resilience.

Brainstorm an authentic but impactful challenge

The first thing you'll need to do is think through some challenges you’ve faced . 

A challenge can be as seemingly simple as learning to trust yourself after a failure in school or an extracurricular activity or as complicated as overcoming significant discrimination and prejudice.

You had to overcome a specific fear to succeed at an activity you love. You may have had to rebuild your life after losing a relative. Maybe your family moved, which shook up your life. Or, receiving one terrible grade or criticism led you to change your outlook on life and motivated you to work harder than ever.

Whatever the obstacle you face (no inventing, please), it should be impactful.

That means thinking of a challenge that changed something about you. As a result of overcoming this obstacle, you should have learned significant lessons about yourself or the world around you and made changes in your life.

Colleges and universities want to know what traits you possess that will help you succeed in college and your future career, so the obstacle you choose to share should have helped you develop one of your defining traits. They will care more about your reaction to this challenge, how it shaped you, and how you articulate it than what the problem was in the first place.

Generally, the obstacle you choose to share should also be pretty recent or have had a current impact on your life, rather than a challenge that happened when you were very young that doesn’t impact you today.

Begin at the end

The opening sentence of your essay about overcoming a challenge should be compelling and make the reader want to continue. It can be tempting to tell the story chronologically, but it can sometimes be adequate to start with the ending or a positive memory.

So, think about when you overcame your challenge or realized that you had improved after facing an obstacle. You might even share a moment when you realized your chosen barrier significantly. Recount this moment as your introductory hook in some way.

You can even preview the lessons you learned in your introduction. That way, readers already know that you will share what you’ve learned rather than just share a story recounting a terrible moment or difficult challenge in your life. This can also make them want to keep reading to see how you got to that place.

Share context about the situation but make it brief

You want the reader to learn about you and your challenges rather than overdoing it in detail. They don't need to know every step of the process or every player in the story.

Of course, you should share the context behind what happened to you that challenged you and changed your life or perspective, but you should not dwell too much on the details. Provide only the ‘need to know’ moments and how they led to changes in your life.

With this kind of essay, readers want to know less about what happened and more about what you learned due to your experience.

Focus on what you learned

Your reflection about what you learned due to your experience should be your primary focus within your essay. This section will help readers understand how you’ve changed after facing your challenge or obstacle to become the stellar student you are today. It can also show the maturity and self-reflection colleges may seek in a student.

By sharing lessons learned in this type of essay, you also share how you will contribute to any college campus with your newly acquired traits and perspectives.

If you had to move from one city to another, perhaps you learned to be flexible or met new friends who helped you discover your fascination with science and technology. If you faced bullying, maybe you learned how to respect yourself without outside validation and gained resilience. Whatever the challenge, the lessons associated with overcoming it are most important.

Share actions you took as a result of overcoming the challenge

To help readers understand how you overcame the challenge and how the lessons you learned tangibly affected your life, you should also consider your actions after overcoming your obstacle.

For example, if you witnessed discrimination at school, you could have founded an anti-bullying campaign or student organization. If you lost a family member to a specific disease, you may have volunteered with an organization to help fund research for a cure.

Remember, all of this information needs to be authentic to your experience. Even the most minor actions can be impactful. So, truth is always best, even if you just learned to treat your family better or significantly improve your grades after facing this obstacle.

Connect the lessons you learned to your future

Finally, you can strengthen your response even more by connecting the lessons you learned and actions you took with your future goals.

Think about how you will show up in college after facing this challenge. And consider how you are better equipped now to achieve your future goals because of the lessons you learned. You can then tie this into how attending each college will help you reach those goals.

Seek support!

Admissions officers should never be the first people to read your essay. Get help from a teacher or college counselor, your parents or guardians, an online college essay writing site like Prompt , or fellow scholars like other NSHSS members   before you hit "submit." 

Have them read your essay and provide you with constructive feedback about content and structure. If you're stuck, you can ask for some "overcoming an obstacle" essay examples or ideas from those who know you well.

Then, submit your essay and enjoy that feeling of accomplishment!

Answering the essay prompt "Describe a Challenge You Overcame" offers a unique opportunity to showcase your resilience, growth, and problem-solving skills. By focusing on the specifics of the challenge, the steps you took to overcome it, and the lessons you learned, you'll answer the prompt effectively and make a lasting impression on the admissions team.

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How to Write the University of California Essays 2023-2024

The University of California (UC) school system is the most prestigious state university system in the United States and includes nine undergraduate universities: UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, UC Davis, UC Riverside, UC Merced, and UC Irvine.

The University of California system has its own application portal, as well as its own deadline of November 30th—a full month before the Common Application is due. All nine universities use one application, so it is easy to apply to multiple UCs at the same time. 

The application requires you to answer four of eight personal insight questions, with a 350-word limit on each prompt. This may seem daunting at first, but we provide this guide to make the prompts more approachable and to help you effectively tackle them! 

University of California Application Essay Prompts

Note: There is only one application for all the UC schools, so your responses will be sent to every University of California school that you apply to. You should avoid making essays school-specific (unless you are applying to only one school).

You might want to start by deciding which four of the eight prompts you plan on answering. The eight prompts are:

1. Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes, or contributed to group efforts over time.

2. every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem-solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. describe how you express your creative side., 3. what would you say is your greatest talent or skill how have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time, 4. describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced., 5. describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. how has this challenge affected your academic achievement, 6. think about an academic subject that inspires you. describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom., 7. what have you done to make your school or your community a better place, 8. beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you stand out as a strong candidate for admissions to the university of california.

As you begin selecting prompts, keep the purpose of college essays at the forefront of your mind. College essays are the place to humanize yourself and transform your test scores, GPA, and extracurriculars into a living, breathing human with values, ambitions, and a backstory. If a specific prompt will allow you to show a part of who you are that is not showcased in the rest of your application, start there. 

If nothing immediately jumps out at you, try dividing the prompts into three categories: “definites,” “possibilities,” and “avoids at all costs.” “Definites” will be prompts that quickly spark up a specific idea in you. “Possibilities” might elicit a few loose concepts, anecdotes, or structures. And “avoids” are prompts where you honestly cannot see yourself writing a convincing essay. Next, take your “definites” and “possibilities” and jot down your initial thoughts about them. Finally, look at all of your ideas together and decide which combination would produce the most well-rounded essay profile that shows who you are as an individual.

Of course, this is just one way to approach choosing prompts if you are stuck. Some students might prefer writing out a list of their values, identifying the most important ones in their life, then figuring out how to showcase those through the prompts. Other students select prompts based on what they are excited by or through freewriting on every prompt first. Do not feel constrained by any one method. Just remember:

• Do not rush into prompts at first glance (though trial writing can be very valuable!).
• Make sure that you consider potential ideas for many prompts before making final decisions, and ultimately write about the one with the most substance.
• The prompts you select should allow you to highlight what is most important to you.

Check out our video to learn more about how to write the UC essays!

The 8 UC Personal Insight Questions

“Leadership Experience” is often a subheading on student resumes, but that is not what admissions officers are asking about here. They are asking for you to tell them a specific story of a time when your leadership truly mattered. This could include discussing the policies you enacted as president of a school club or the social ties you helped establish as captain of a sports team, but this prompt also gives you the freedom to go past that.

Leaders are individuals with strong values, who mentor, inspire, correct, and assist those around them. If you don’t feel like you’ve ever been a leader, consider the following questions:

• Have you ever mentored anyone? Is there anyone younger than you who would not be the person they are today without you?
• Have you ever taken the initiative? When and why did it matter?
• Have you ever been fundamental to positive change in the world—whether it be on the small scale of positively impacting a family member’s life or on the large scale of trying to change the status of specific communities/identities in this world?
• Have you ever stood up for what’s right or what you believe in?

Leadership is a concept that can be stretched, bent, and played with, but at the end of the day, the central theme of your essay must be leadership. Keeping this in mind, after your first draft, it can be helpful to identify the definition of leadership that you are working with, to keep your essay cohesive. This definition doesn’t need to appear within the essay (though, if you take on a more reflective structure, it might). Some examples of this include “being a positive role model as leadership,” “encouraging others to take risks as leadership,” and “embracing my identities as leadership.”

Here are some examples of how a leadership essay might look:

• You’ve always loved learning and challenging yourself, but when you got to high school it was clear that only a certain type of student was recommended to take AP classes and you didn’t fit into that type. You presented a strong case to the school counselors that you were just as prepared for AP classes as anyone else, enrolled in your desired classes, and excelled. Since then, AP classes have become more diversified at your school and there has even been a new inclusion training introduced for your district’s school counselors. 
• When you were working as a camp counselor, the art teacher brought you two of your campers who were refusing to get along. To mediate the conflict, you spent long hours before bed talking to them individually, learning about their personal lives and family situation. By understanding where each camper came from, you were better equipped to help them reach a compromise and became a role model for both campers.
• As a member of your school’s Chinese organization, you were driven by your ethnic heritage to devote your lunch breaks to ensuring the smooth presentation of the Chinese culture show. You coordinated the performers, prepared refreshments, and collected tickets. You got through a great performance, even though a performer didn’t show and some of the food was delivered late. You weren’t on the leadership board or anything, but exhibited serious leadership, as both nights of the culture show sold out and hundreds of both Chinese and non-Chinese people were able to come together and celebrate your culture.

Like the last prompt, this prompt asks about a specific topic—creativity—but gives you wiggle room to expand your definition of that topic. By defining creativity as problem-solving, novel thinking, and artistic expression, this prompt basically says “get creative in how you define creativity!” 

Additionally, this broad conception of creativity lets you choose if you want to write about your personal life or your academic life. A robotics student could write about their love of baking on the weekends or their quick thinking during a technical interview. A dance student could write about their love of adapting choreography from famous ballets or their innovative solution to their dance team’s lack of funds for their showcase. You have space to do what you want!

That said, because this prompt is so open, it is important to establish a focus early on. Try thinking about what is missing from your application. If you are worried that your application makes you seem hyper-academic, use this prompt to show how you have fun. If you are worried that you might be appearing like one of those students who just gets good grades because they have a good memory, use this prompt to show off your problem-solving skills.

Also, keep in mind that you don’t have to describe any skill in creative pursuits as you answer this prompt. The prompt asks you how you express your “creative side,” alluding to creative instinct, not creative talent. You could write about how you use painting to let out your emotions—but your paintings aren’t very good. You could write about dancing in the shower to get excited for your day—but one time you slipped and fell and hurt your elbow. Experiences like these could make for a great reflective essay, where you explore the human drive towards creative expression and your acceptance that you personally don’t have to be creatively inclined to let out creative energy.

Some examples:

• A math student writing about a time they devised a non-textbook method to proving theorems 
• A creative writer describing how they close-read the ups-and-downs of classical music as an attempt to combat writers’ block and think of emotional trajectories for new stories
• An engineering student writing about cooking as a creative release where numbers don’t matter and intuition supersedes reason
• A psychology student writing about the limitations of quantitative data and describing a future approach to psychology that merges humanism and empiricism.

This is the kind of prompt where an answer either pops into your head or it doesn’t. The good news is that you can write a convincing essay either way. We all have great talents and skills—you just might have to dig a bit to identify the name of the talent/skill and figure out how to best describe it.

Some students have more obvious talents and skills than others. For example, if you are intending to be a college athlete, it makes sense to see your skill at your sport as your greatest talent or skill. Similarly, if you are being accepted into a highly-selective fine arts program, painting might feel like your greatest talent. These are completely reasonable to write about because, while obvious, they are also authentic! 

The key to writing a convincing essay about an obvious skill is to use that skill to explore your personality, values, motivations, and ambitions. Start by considering what first drew you to your specialization. Was there a specific person? Something your life was missing that painting, hockey, or film satisfied? Were you brought up playing your sport or doing your craft because your parents wanted you to and you had to learn to love it? Or choose to love it? What was that process like? What do these experiences say about you? Next, consider how your relationship with your talent has evolved. Have you doubted your devotion at times? Have you wondered if you are good enough? Why do you keep going? On the other hand, is your talent your solace? The stable element in your life? Why do you need that?

The key is to elucidate why this activity is worth putting all your time into, and how your personality strengths are exhibited through your relationship to the activity. 

Do not be put off by this prompt if you have not won any big awards or shown immense talent in something specific. All the prompt asks for is what you think is your greatest talent or skill. Some avenues of consideration for other students include:

• Think about aspects of your personality that might be considered a talent or skill. This might include being a peacemaker, being able to make people laugh during hard times, or having organization skills.
• Think about unique skills that you have developed through unique situations. These would be things like being really good at reading out loud because you spend summers with your grandfather who can no longer read, knowing traffic patterns because you volunteer as a crossing guard at the elementary school across the street that starts 45 minutes before the high school, or making really good pierogi because your babysitter as a child was Polish.
• Think about lessons you have learned through life experiences. A military baby might have a great skill for making new friends at new schools, a child of divorce might reflect on their ability to establish boundaries in what they are willing to communicate about with different people, and a student who has had to have multiple jobs in high school might be talented at multitasking and scheduling. 

Make sure to also address how you have developed and demonstrated your selected talent. Do you put in small amounts of practice every day, or strenuous hours for a couple of short periods each year? Did a specific period of your life lead to the development of your talent or are you still developing it daily? 

The purpose of college essays is to show your values and personality to admissions officers, which often includes exploring your past and how it informs your present and future. With a bit of creativity in how you define a “talent or skill,” this prompt can provide a great avenue for that exploration. 

This prompt offers you two potential paths—discussing an educational opportunity or barrier. It is important that you limit yourself to one of these paths of exploration to keep your essay focused and cohesive. 

Starting with the first option, you should think of an educational opportunity as anything that has added value to your educational experience and better prepared you for life and your career. Some examples could include:

• participation in an honors program
• enrollment in an academy geared toward your future profession
• a particularly enlightening conversation with a professional or teacher
• joining a cultural- or interest-based student coalition
• plenty of other opportunities

The phrasing “taken advantage of” implies the admissions committee’s desire for students who take the initiative. Admissions officers are more interested in students who sought out opportunities and who fought to engage with opportunities than students who were handed things. For example, a student who joined a career-advancement afterschool program in middle school could write about why they were initially interested in the program—perhaps they were struggling in a specific subject and didn’t want to fall behind because they had their sights set on getting into National Junior Honor Society, or their friend mentioned that the program facilitated internship opportunities and they thought they wanted to explore therapy as a potential career path.

On the other hand, if an opportunity was handed to you through family connections or a fortuitous introduction, explore what you did with that opportunity. For example, if a family member introduced you to an important producer because they knew you were interested in film, you could write about the notes you took during that meeting and how you have revisited the producer’s advice and used it since the meeting to find cheap equipment rentals and practice your craft.

If you choose to write about educational barriers you have faced, consider the personal characteristics and skills you called upon to overcome the challenge. How did the process of overcoming your educational barrier shape you as a person? What did you learn about yourself or the world? An added plus would be talking about passing it forward and helping those in your purview obtain the knowledge you did from your experiences.

Some examples of educational barriers could include:

• limited access to resources, materials, technology, or classes
• lacking educational role models
• struggles with deciding on a passion or career path
• financial struggles

One example of an interesting essay about educational barriers:

As a student at a school that did not offer any honors classes, you enrolled in online lectures to learn the subject you were passionate about — Human Geography. Afterward, you spoke to your school administrators about high-achieving students needing higher-level courses, and they agreed to talk to the local community college to start a pipeline for students like you.

Either way that you take this prompt, it can be used to position yourself as motivated and driven—exactly the type of student admissions officers are looking for!

This prompt is three-pronged. You must 1) identify a challenge 2) describe the steps you have taken to overcome the challenge and 3) connect the challenge to your academic achievement.

When approaching this prompt, it is best to consider these first and third aspects together so that you identify a challenge that connects to your academic life. If you simply pick any challenge you have experienced, when you get to the third part of the prompt, you may have to stretch your essay in ways that are unconvincing or feel inauthentic.

That said, remember that “academic achievement” reaches far beyond grades and exams. It can include things like:

• Deciding your career goals
• Balancing homework, jobs, and social/familial relationships
• Having enough time to devote to self-care
• Figuring out how you study/learn best
• Feeling comfortable asking for help when you need it

You should begin brainstorming challenges and hardships that you have experienced and overcome. These could include financial hardships, familial circumstances, personal illness, or learning disabilities. Challenges could also be less structural—things like feeling like you are living in a sibling’s shadow, struggles with body image, or insecurity. While it is important that your challenge was significant, it matters much more that you discuss your challenge with thoughtful reflection and maturity.

Some ways to take this prompt include:

• Writing about how overcoming a challenge taught you a skill that led to academic success — for example, a high-achieving student who struggles with anxiety was forced to take time off from school after an anxiety attack and learned the importance of giving oneself a break
• Writing about a challenge that temporarily hindered your academic success and reflecting on it — for example, a student who experienced a death in the family could have had a semester where they almost failed English because reading led to negative thought spirals instead of plot retention
• Writing about how a challenge humbled you and gave you a new perspective on your academics — for example, a student with a part-time job who helps support her family missed a shift because she was studying for a test and realized that she needed to ask her teachers for help and explain her home situation

As you describe the steps you have taken to overcome your selected challenge, you will want to include both tangible and intangible steps. This means that you will need to discuss your emotions, growth, and development, as well as what you learned through overcoming the challenge. Was your challenge easy to overcome or did it take a few tries? Do you feel you have fully overcome your challenge or is it a work in progress? If you have fully overcome the challenge, what do you do differently now? Or do you just see things differently now? If you were to experience the same challenge again, what would you have learned from before?

Here are some detailed examples:

• Your parents underwent a bitter, drawn-out divorce that deeply scarred you and your siblings, especially your little brother who was attending elementary school at the time. He was constantly distraught and melancholy and seemed to be falling further and further behind in his schoolwork. You took care of him, but at the cost of your grades plummeting. However, through this trial, you committed yourself to protecting your family at all costs. You focused on computer science in high school, hoping to major in it and save up enough money for his college tuition by the time he applies. Through this mission, your resolve strengthened and reflected in your more efficient and excellent performance in class later on.
• Your race was the most significant challenge you faced growing up. In school, teachers did not value your opinion nor did they believe in you, as evidenced by their preferential treatment of students of other races. To fight back against this discrimination, you talked to other students of the same race and established an association, pooling together resources and providing a supportive network of people to others in need of counseling regarding this issue.

The first step for approaching this prompt is fun and easy—think about an academic subject that inspires you. This part of the essay is about emotional resonance, so go with your gut and don’t overthink it. What is your favorite subject? What subject do you engage with in the media in your free time? What subject seeps into your conversations with friends and family on the weekends?

Keep in mind that high school subjects are often rather limited. The span of “academic subjects” at the university level is much less limited. Some examples of academic subjects include eighteenth-century literature, political diplomacy, astronomy, Italian film and television, botany, Jewish culture and history, mobile robotics, musical theater, race and class in urban environments, gender and sexuality, and much more.

Once you’ve decided what subject you are most interested in and inspired by, think about a tangible example of how you have furthered your interest in the subject. Some common ways students further their interests include:

• Reading about your interest
• Engaging with media (television, film, social media) about your interest
• Volunteering with organizations related to your interest
• Founding organizations related to your interest
• Reaching out to professionals with your academic interest
• Using your interest in interdisciplinary ways
• Research in your field of interest
• Internships in your field of interest

While you should include these kinds of tangible examples, do not forget to explain how your love for the subject drives the work you do, because, with an essay like this, the why can easily get lost in describing the what . Admissions officers need both.

A few examples:

• You found your US government class fascinatingly complex, so you decided to campaign for a Congressional candidate who was challenging the incumbent in your district. You canvassed in your local community, worked at the campaign headquarters, and gathered voter data whilst performing various administrative duties. Though the work was difficult, you enjoyed a sense of fulfillment that came from being part of history.
• Last year you fell in love with the play Suddenly Last Summer and decided to see what career paths were available for dramatic writing. You reached out to the contact on your local theater’s website, were invited to start attending their guest lecturer series, and introduced yourself to a lecturer one week who ended up helping you score a spot in a Young Dramatic Writers group downtown.
• The regenerative power of cells amazed you, so you decided to take AP Biology to learn more. Eventually, you mustered up the courage to email a cohort of biology professors at your local university. One professor responded, and agreed to let you assist his research for the next few months on the microorganism C. Elegans.
• You continued to develop apps and games even after AP Computer Science concluded for the year. Eventually, you became good enough to land an internship at a local startup due to your self-taught knowledge of various programming languages.

With regards to structure, you might try thinking about this essay in a past/present/future manner where you consider your past engagement with your interest and how it will affect your future at a UC school or as an adult in society. This essay could also become an anecdotal/narrative essay that centers around the story of you discovering your academic interest, or a reflective essay that dives deep into the details of why you are drawn to your particular academic subject.

Whatever way you take it, try to make your essay unique—either through your subject matter, your structure, or your writing style!

College essay prompts often engage with the word “community.” As an essay writer, it is important to recognize that your community can be as large, small, formal, or informal as you want it to be. Your school is obviously a community you belong to, but your local grocery store, the nearby pet adoption center you volunteer at, your apartment building, or an internet group can also be communities. Even larger social groups that you are a part of, like your country or your ethnicity, can be a community. 

The important part of your response here is not the community you identify with but rather the way you describe your role in that community. What do you bring to your community that is special? What would be missing without you?

Some responses could include describing how you serve as a role model in your community, how you advocate for change in your community, how you are a support system for other community members, or how you correct the community when it is veering away from its values and principles.

Here are some fleshed-out examples of how this essay could take shape, using the earlier referenced communities:

• A student writes about the local grocery store in his neighborhood. Each Sunday, he picks up his family’s groceries and then goes to the pharmacy in the back to get his grandmother’s medication. The pharmacist was a close friend of his grandmother’s when she was young, so the student routinely gives the pharmacist a detailed update about his grandmother’s life. The student recognizes the value in his serving as a link to connect these two individuals who, due to aging, cannot be together physically.
• An animal-loving student volunteers one Saturday each month at the pet adoption center in their city’s downtown district. They have always been an extremely compassionate person and view the young kittens as a community that deserves to be cared for. This caring instinct also contributes to their interactions with their peers and their desire to make large-scale positive social change in the world.

Your response to this prompt will be convincing if you discuss your underlying motives for the service you have done, and in turn, demonstrate the positive influence you have made. That said, do not be afraid to talk about your actions even if they did not produce a sweeping change; as long as the effort was genuine, change is change, no matter the scale. This essay is more about values and reflection than it is about the effects of your efforts.

Lastly, if you are discussing a specific service you did for your community, you might want to touch on what you learned through your service action or initiative, and how you will continue to learn in the future. Here are a few examples:

• Passionate about classical music, you created a club that taught classical and instrumental music at local elementary schools. You knew that the kids did not have access to such resources, so you wanted to broaden their exposure as a high school senior had done for you when you were in middle school. You encouraged these elementary schoolers to fiddle with the instruments and lobbied for a music program to be implemented at the school. Whether the proposal gets approved or not, the kids have now known something they might never have known otherwise.
• Working at your local library was mundane at times, but in the long run, you realized that you were facilitating the exchange of knowledge and protecting the intellectual property of eminent scholars. Over time, you found ways to liven up the spirit of the library by leading arts and crafts time and booking puppet shows for little kids whose parents were still at work. The deep relationships you forged with the kids eventually blossomed into a bond of mentorship and mutual respect.

Be authentic and humble in your response to this essay! Make sure it feels like you made your community a better place because community is a value of yours, not just so that you could write about it in a college essay.

This is the most open-ended any question can get. You have the freedom to write about anything you want! That said, make sure that, no matter what you do with this prompt, your focus can be summarized into two sentences that describe the uniqueness of your candidacy.

The process we recommend for responding to open-ended prompts with clarity involves the following steps:

1. On a blank piece of paper, jot down any and every idea — feelings, phrases, and keywords — that pop into your head after reading this prompt. Why are you unique?

2. Narrow your ideas down to one topic. The two examples we will use are a student writing about how her habit of pausing at least five seconds before she responds to someone else’s opinion is emblematic of her thoughtfulness and a student whose interest in researching the history of colonialism in the Caribbean is emblematic of their commitment to justice.

3. Outline the structure of your essay, and plan out content for an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

4. Before you start writing your essay, write one or two sentences that summarize how you would like the admissions officers to perceive you based on this essay. These sentences will not be in your final product, but will help you to maintain a focus. For our examples, this would be something like “Natalie’s habit of gathering her thoughts before responding to other people’s opinions allows her to avoid undesired complications and miscommunications in her social interactions. This has not only helped her maintain strong relationships with all the staff members of the clubs she leads, but will also help her navigate the social environments that she will face in the professional world.” A summary for the student writing about their interest in the history of colonialism could be “Jonathan has always been highly compassionate and sympathetic by nature. When they found out about the historical injustices of colonialism in the Caribbean through the book The Black Jacobins , they realized that compassion is what is missing from politics. Now, they are inspired to pursue a political science degree to ultimately have a political career guided by compassion.”

5. Finally, write an essay dedicated to constructing the image you devised in step 4. This can be achieved through a number of different structures! For example, Natalie could use an anecdote of a time when she spoke too soon and caused someone else pain, then could reflect on how she learned the lesson to take at least five seconds before responding and how that decision has affected her life. Jonathan could create an image of the future where they are enacting local policies based on compassion. It is important to keep in mind that you do not want to be repetitive, but you must stay on topic so that admissions officers do not get distracted and forget the image that you are attempting to convey.

As exemplified by the examples we provided, a good way to approach this prompt is to think of a quality, value, or personality trait of yours that is fundamental to who you are and appealing to admissions officers, then connect it to a specific activity, habit, pet peeve, anecdote, or another tangible example that you can use to ground your essay in reality. Use the tangible to describe the abstract, and convince admissions officers that you would be a valuable asset to their UC school!

Where to Get Your UC Essays Edited

With hundreds of thousands of applicants each year, many receiving top scores and grades, getting into top UC schools is no small feat. This is why excelling in the personal-insight questions is key to presenting yourself as a worthwhile candidate. Answering these prompts can be difficult, but ultimately very rewarding, and CollegeVine is committed to helping you along that journey. Check out these UC essay examples for more writing inspiration.

If you want to get your essays edited, we also have free peer essay review , where you can get feedback from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by editing other students’ essays.

You can also receive expert essay review by advisors who have helped students get into their dream schools. You can book a review with an expert to receive notes on your topic, grammar, and essay structure to make your essay stand out to admissions officers. Haven’t started writing your essay yet? Advisors on CollegeVine also offer  expert college counseling packages . You can purchase a package to get one-on-one guidance on any aspect of the college application process, including brainstorming and writing essays.

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Overcoming Obstacles: My Thesis for The Challenge

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Published: Jun 13, 2024

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As FAFSA delays help push college enrollment down again, higher education’s challenge is to make sure this is a temporary hangover—and not a full-blown rejection of college that could haunt us for years.

Higher ed is still recovering from the pandemic’s dampening effect on college-going rates. A significant drop among new and current students unable to secure financial aid would compound those losses.

But our enrollment challenges are bigger than just a rocky rollout to the FAFSA.

In fact, enrollment declines have been with us for more than a decade . We can blame multiple factors for that, including rising costs and debt, questionable returns, and an improving economy.

“You don't need a college degree to get a good job,” is a common refrain today. Maybe not in specific cases, but most good jobs in this increasingly tech-focused world demand some kind of quality credential beyond high school. If you doubt that, just read the job postings online. And it’s not just a one-time payoff. The return for additional learning, including a bachelor’s degree, increases throughout a person’s working life.

But if students and families aren’t getting the message, one reason may be higher ed itself: For too long, academia has blamed falling enrollment on external factors such as COVID and FAFSA—contributors, to be sure, but not the root cause of the problem.

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The fact is, higher education suffers from a credibility gap—one it must address. A recent Gallup survey found that only 36 percent of Americans have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education—down 20 points from eight years ago.

Too many families question the payoff of a degree, though admittedly that cost-benefit analysis is complicated by the type of degree, the industry demand for specific skills, and where graduates choose to live.

Enrollment ticked up by 2.5 percent this spring—and 4.7 percent for community colleges, but some schools will surely face a FAFSA “hangover” in the form of decreased enrollment, at a time when many face serious financial pressure.

As of May 31, only 43 percent of high school seniors had filed the FAFSA, according to the National College Attainment Network . That’s down 14 percentage points from the same time last year.

The impact will likely be worse for students of color, who often rely on financial aid to afford college. High schools that serve more students of color and students from low-income households are seeing steeper declines in FAFSA completion rates.

“We know that when students, particularly low-income students, delay entry to postsecondary education, that tends to often be permanent,” said Bryan J. Cook , director of higher education policy at the Urban Institute’s Center on Education Data and Policy, in a recent interview with NPR.

The problem extends to students who are returning to college, as well. A survey this spring found that 20 percent of current students and 28 percent of students who had stopped out were waiting to find out about their federal aid before deciding to whether to re-enroll. Losing these students would add to the 37 million Americans who have left college without a credential.

Recent efforts to help students finish the FAFSA have narrowed the gap in applications somewhat. And federal officials have promised a smoother FAFSA experience in the fall when applications open for the next school year.

In the longer term, many states are also exploring policies to encourage more students to apply for financial aid—which in turn increases the likelihood that they will enroll and persist through college. About a dozen states now require all high school seniors to complete the FAFSA, for example. Or, in Minnesota, a direct admissions program has led to an increase in FAFSA completions, when colleges and universities “pre-approve” students without a lengthy application.

We need more solutions like these—more ways to help students see college as an affordable option—and simpler, clearer ways to pay for it.

We also need to make the case for higher education. It’s not enough to simply point out the economic benefits, though they are staggering: According to Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, the increase in college attainment since 2010 has resulted in an estimated $14.2 trillion in additional earnings by American workers.

And while we know a great deal about the expense of higher education, we’re also learning about the costs when people stop growing their skills and knowledge. Those without education beyond high school not only earn less, they’re also more likely to be unemployed, suffer depression, need government assistance, and divorce more frequently. They vote less often and are less likely to volunteer in their communities.

If those costs weren’t enough, we now understand the term “deaths of despair” —and the recent followup research from Anne Case and Angus Deaton showing that people with college degrees live, on average, eight years longer than those without. Helping more people get college degrees and other learning beyond high school not only helps those individuals but also yields enormous benefits that cascade through society in terms of greater economic stability and national well-being.

No, fixing the FAFSA won’t be enough to remedy higher ed’s underlying challenges, but it’s a start. And if we keep working to make college success a viable goal for everyone, that credibility gap will surely diminish, making higher education’s value clear once again.

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After Affirmative Action Ban, They Rewrote College Essays With a Key Theme: Race

The Supreme Court’s ruling intended to remove the consideration of race during the admissions process. So students used their essays to highlight their racial background.

By Bernard Mokam

Bernard Mokam interviewed dozens of high school students, parents and counselors about preparing college applications in a new landscape.

Astrid Delgado first wrote her college application essay about a death in her family. Then she reshaped it around a Spanish book she read as a way to connect to her Dominican heritage.

Deshayne Curley wanted to leave his Indigenous background out of his essay. But he reworked it to focus on an heirloom necklace that reminded him of his home on the Navajo Reservation.

The first draft of Jyel Hollingsworth’s essay explored her love for chess. The final focused on the prejudice between her Korean and Black American families and the financial hardships she overcame.

All three students said they decided to rethink their essays to emphasize one key element: their racial identities. And they did so after the Supreme Court last year struck down affirmative action in college admissions, leaving essays the only place for applicants to directly indicate their racial and ethnic backgrounds.

High school students graduating this year worked on their college applications, due this month, in one of the most turbulent years in American education. Not only have they had to prepare them in the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war — which sparked debates about free speech and antisemitism on college campuses, leading to the resignation of two Ivy League presidents — but they also had to wade through the new ban on race-conscious admissions.

“It has been a lot to take in,” said Keteyian Cade, a 17-year-old from St. Louis. “There is so much going on in the world right now.”

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